Safetynet Version 2, a Packet Error Recovery Architecture for Vertical Handoffs

Abstract

Mobile devices are connecting to the Internet through an increasingly heterogeneous network environment. This connectivity via multiple types of wireless networks allows the mobile devices to take advantage of the high speed and the low cost of wireless local area networks and the large coverage of wireless wide area networks. To maximize the benefits from these complementing characteristics, the mobile devices need to be able to switch seamlessly between the different network types. However, the switch between the technologies, also known as a vertical handoff, often results in significant packet loss and degradation of connectivity due to handoff delay and also increased packet loss rate on the border of the coverage area of the networks. In our previous work, we have proposed an inter technology mobility management architecture which addresses the packet losses using selective resending of packets lost during the handoff period. In this paper, we extend the architecture to address packet losses due to wireless errors more efficiently by taking advantage of erasure codes to form redundancy packets. We propose to send these redundancy packets over both links. We show that this proposal reduces both the chances of packet loss and the buffering requirements of the original SafetyNet scheme.