Fast handoff scheme for seamless multimedia service in wireless LAN

In this paper(1), we propose a fast handoff method for seamless multimedia service in IEEE 802.11 WLAN. The proposed method uses an improved access point (AP) with additional radio frequency (RF) module, SNIFFER, monitoring the movement of the station (STA). By using the SNIFFER, the proposed method can completely remove the probe delay. Furthermore, we also propose an effective handoff decision method taking into account the quality of service (QoS) in the application layer. The proposed method uses packet loss information and the received signal strength indication (RSSI) for the handoff decision. Experimental results show that the proposed method can improve the performance of the seamless multimedia service by drastically reducing the handoff delay and packet loss.