Cross-layering IPv6 fast handover in IEEE 802.16

In wireless networks, the handover in the network layer (L3) is usually initiated after the handover in the link layer (L2) is complete, so the total handover delay is equal to the sum of the L2 handover delay and the L3 handover delay. In order to reduce the total handover delay, this paper studies the correlations between the L2 messages and L3 ones, and proposes a cross-layering handover scheme. The main idea behind this scheme is to effectively combine the related messages in L2 and L3 and achieve the L3 handover with the L2 messages in order to minimize the effect of the L3 handover delay on the total handover delay. The performance of this scheme is evaluated, and the results show that this scheme effectively reduces the total handover delay. © 2017 - IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved.