Intelligence in mobility decisions

Resumo

In the future, different technologies, such as Wi-Fi, UMTS, HSDPA and Wimax, will converge in a complementary manner forming a heterogeneous infrastructure. Moreover, the evolution of mobile terminals will allow them to connect simultaneously to several access networks and make use of multi homing capabilities. Thus, the concept of “always best connected” (ABC), consisting in using the devices and access technologies that best suit communications needs, users and networks, can now be implemented. In this paper we present a performance study of a context aware and personalized network selection algorithm that enables the support of any criteria, quantitative and qualitative, including context and preferences, network and terminal characteristics, to determine the best access connection for each terminal and service. The performance results show the benefits of using such an algorithm in the network performance, and address the influence of specific criteria and constraints considered in the decision process.