Implementing Automatic Handover Solutions for Linux-based Mobile Devices

In a heterogeneous network environment, transparent horizontal and vertical handover is a much desired feature. Effective handover solution would allow mobile device users to stay steadily connected, seamlessly switching between different access networks. If it also consistently connected to networks which offer best quality of service, that would dramatically improve user experience. Expanding upon our work in [1], we present a framework for creating your own custom handover solutions which could run on the clients' Linux-based mobile devices. The framework consists of three core interacting components: scanners, which detect available networks; measurers, which measure network parameters for every detected network; and evaluators, which rank networks according to the values of the parameters. To provide an example of using the framework, we reimplement parts of our previous signal strength-based handover solution to get improved flexibility, modularity and modifiability.