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Network Handled Seamless IP Mobility for Vertical Handovers Between Cellular Networks and WLAN Hot Spots
Njedjou E, Bertin P, Reynolds PL
Proceedings of the WWRF, New York, USA, 27-28 October, 2003
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In the future of Wireless IP Communications, mobile users will be provided with multiple radio interfaces equipped laptops and hand held devices as PDAs. Smart devices that possess a multi-radio technologies capable PCMCIA or flash card will also become pervasive.

These capabilities will give users the ability to access services on the Internet regardless of the radio coverage type (GPRS, UMTS, CDMA1xRTT, 802.11?) they are present in. In such areas as airports, Conference halls and hotels, several radio access networks of different technologies would even be simultaneously present. The user would then have the ability to watch a video news flash on WLAN then move to GPRS/UMTS for web browsing. It could also become possible for the same customer to start file transfer on WLAN and complete the operation on GPRS/UMTS either because he moved away from the WLAN coverage or because he suddenly lost its WLAN connectivity.

In order to anticipate mobile users needs to come, it is becoming essential to design optimal ways by which the mobile device can seamlessly change its access link and therefore its point of attachment to the Internet, while the user is moving between radio access points of the various available technologies. It is even more challenging to enable such an inter-technology handover in a way that is convenient to both the customer's profile requirements and the network operator resources utilization.

The aim of this document is to propose a generic mechanism to efficiently handle terminals IP handovers in Beyond 3G architectures where by moving devices will connect to the Internet by a variety of Access Networks each of different technologies

Njedjou E, Bertin P, Reynolds PL