Supporting video streaming over WiMAX networks by enhanced FMIPv6-based handover

IEEE 802.16, also widely known as WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access), is an emerging broadband wireless standard. The seamless support over an efficient handover (HO) mechanism is vital to its success. This paper proposes a new cross-layer HO scheme, enhanced from FMIPv6 (Fast Mobile IPv6 Handoff Protocol) by adopting two features: reducing control messages and eliminating duplicated care-of-addresses. The resulting HO delay is significantly decreased, which also improves other QoS parameters. The new scheme is evaluated for its support of video streaming traffic while comparing with three other HO schemes: FMIPv6 and two existing enhancements to FMIPv6. We measure HO delay and loss; and PSNR (Peak Signal to Noise Ratio) and MOS (Mean Opinion Score) for video quality. We found that the proposed enhancement has achieved considerable improvement over the existing schemes, especially under heavy network conditions and fast mobility speed. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.