decrease cell size – Increased cell crossings per unit time – Greater demands on switching infrastructure • Quality of Service (QoS) Considerations – Rerouting connections with low latency – Minimizes co-channel interference – Rapid reallocation of network resources • Multitier PCS Systems – Macrocells overlain on top of microcells – Rapidly moving mobiles assigned to the former, stationary mobiles to the latter
2 Issues for Handoff
• Making handoffs “seamless”
– Minimize handoff latency – Minimize frequency of handoff and its effects on QoS – Minimize probability of dropping connections across handoffs – Minimize “call blocking”/effects of admission control • Strategies – Channel allocation – Virtual connection trees – Multicast routing – User tracking
3 Performance Metrics
• Call blocking probability—new call attempt is blocked
• Handover blocking probability—handoff attempt is blocked • Call dropping probability—call terminated due to failed handoff • Probability of unnecessary handoff—handoff initiated when radio link still acceptable • Rate of handoff—# of handoffs/unit time • Duration of interruption—loss of communication with any base station • Delay—distance moved before handoff occurs 4 Handoff Initiation BS1 BS2 Handoff based on: RSS from BS1 RSS from BS2 A: Relative SS B: Relative SS + Threshold T1 C: Relative SS + Hysteresis A B h D: Relative SS + T2 Hysteresis Hysteresis & T3 D + Timers Threshold C Predictive Tech- niques
Increasing delay implies Motion
decreasing link quality and increasing dropping probability 5 Handoff Initiation Mean # of Increasing h Handoffs Decreasing T 6 Trade h/o delay for decreased 5 number of handoffs 4
2 Delay
0.5 Fraction of distance between 0.75
two identical base stations 6 Macro/Micro Cell Handoffs
• Use cell dwell times to
perform cell assignment: – Move to bigger cell if user does not spend enough time in the current cell – Move to a smaller cell if the Macrocells for fast movers user stays there too long Microcells for slow movers Estimate speed via doppler frequency Direction-based algorithms
Access Schemes: CDMA/CDMA
— CDMA in macrocells, TDMA in microcells doesn’t work — TDMA in macrocells, CDMA in microcells well because of — TDMA timeslot sharing differing power — Frequency splitting levels for macro/micro cells 7 Channel Assignment
• Fixed Assignment – Permanent assignment to all cells – Simple, but what happens when there are local demand hotspots? • Simple Borrowing – MSC “borrows” unused channel from adjacent cell – Select cell with lowest number of in-use channels • Hybrid – Partition channels into those that are “reserved for local use only” and those that may be borrowed on demand – Choose fixed partitioning based on expected traffic load • Borrowing with Ordering – Adjust reserved/borrowable ratio based on dynamic traffic conditions 9 Dynamic Channel Assignment
• Call-by-Call Optimized – MSC assigns channels on demand to BSs under its control – Cost function depends on: » Future blocking probability » Usage frequency of channel » Reuse distance of channel » … – Other inputs to the decision process: » Channel occupancy distributions » Current traffic measurements » Radio channel measurements
10 Flexible Channel Assignment
• MSC holds “flexible” channels in reserve in
addition to channels assigned to specific cells • MSC assigns reserve channels to cells to meet demand – Scheduled » MSC knows in advance when peak traffic periods will arise for different cells – Predictive » Continuous measurement of traffic intensity » MSC predicts traffic changes over time and space, and makes necessary assignments of reserve channels
11 Handoff Scenarios
• Prioritize handoff requests to protect against
dropped calls • Radio channel measurements – Fading channel implies that loss of signal strength must persist for some threshold time before a handoff is requested – But perform with low latency to insure reduced probability of dropping – MSC must identify channel in new cell to assign to MS as it approaches the cell boundary • Guard channels: small number of channels reserved for handoff to MS with calls in progress – Increases blocking probability but decreases dropping probability – Worse spectrum utilization 12 Handoff Scenarios
• Queuing of Originating Calls
– Make new calls wait while giving priority to handoff connections – Can also queue handoffs, since there is a time interval during which the existing call connection can be retained before a new one is assigned » Position in queue depends on how close the MS is to the edge of the cell » Higher priority for MSs close to edge and/or moving fast » Lower priority for MSs further from edge and/or moving slow
13 Handoffs and Connections
1. Connection established to originating cell Switch 2. As mobile moves, BS in 1 original cell forwards to 3 new cell—latency and load on original BS and network 3. Tear up and reestablish 2 connection tails Base Station
Originating Forwarding Cell
New Cell Beware of forwarding loops!
14 Virtual Connection Trees Wireline Switch Network Admission Control on entry to a new VCT
Switch Unit of admission
control Base Station
Virtual Connection Numbers:
Assigned to path from root of tree to leaves of tree; One for each possible path and each MS(!!)
Connection consists of two parts:
(1) Path from BS to root of tree (2) Fixed virtual connection to other party in connection 15 Virtual Connection Trees Single root per region: scaling problem? VC -> VCN path translation
New VCN for return
path VC is detected at root; root updates its VC to VCN mapping Mobile Initiated Handoff: Access points chosen by mobile NOTE: No discussion of forwarding! 16 User Tracking
• Picocellular systems – Cell sizes on the order of 10 m diameter (pedestrian speeds are 2-3 m/second) – Faster inter-node mobility, greater frequency of handoffs – Proposed solution: local area multicast
SH Supervisor Host: manages region
Multicast group and inter-region routing
BS BS BS BS BS BS Base Station (aka MSS)
Exploit geographic info
about cells to predict formation of groups 17 Mobility Protocol (Ghai and Singh) VC Active Remote Connection Establishment SH Cloud SH
MSS MSS MSS
Active Local MH MH Multicast Connection— MH Address Local Multicast
Direction of Motion 1 2 Red is forwarding i 3 Gray is buffering How easy to predict? 18 Mobility Protocol • Connection Establishment – MHS to communicate with MHD; Reflect request to MSSS and SHS – Assigns local VCN, connection is NASCENT – SHS locates MHD (VCN, ID of MHS, ID of MHD) » Looks for MHD within local subnet first (ACTIVE LOCAL) » If no response, broadcast locate request to other SHs; When located, assign local VCN, respond to SHS Connection status becomes ACTIVE REMOTE – Connection is now established • Connection Maintenance – MSS beacon signaling: MH responds with GREET (includes ID of old MSS and SH); MSS responds with GREET_ACK – Same subnet: SH changes membership in MH’s group – New subnet: new SH must inherit MH’s existing connections ACTIVE_LOCAL connections become ACTIVE_REMOTE Some ACTIVE_REMOTE connections become ACTIVE_LOCAL 19 Mobility Protocol
• Communications between MHs
– Same subnet: local multicast from source MSS to group members of destination MH – Different subnets: source SH sends packet to destination SH with appropriate local VCN » At Destination SH, if connection is ACTIVE_REMOTE: Multicast the packet to the group in the local subnet » If POINT, “Destination” SH forwards the packet to the current SH of the destination MH;
Status is POINT if MH moves out of subnet after
connection has been established
Note that scheme does NOT propose how to prune
these forwarding pointers
20 Low Latency Handoff Home Multicast Tunnel Agent
Use hints about terminal Foreign Local Multicast
trajectory to form MC groups Agent Group Packet Video Steam Multicast packets to “regional” base stations to smooth hand-offs for R/T streams Base Base Station Station Minimize location update traffic to home agent and mobility aware CHs
21 Low Latency Handoff Home Agent
Forwarding Base Station Foreign
Agent
Base Base Station Station
22 Low Latency Handoff Home Agent
Forwarding Base Station Foreign
Agent Buffering Base Station
Base Base Station Station
23 Low Latency Handoff Home Agent
Forwarding Base Station Foreign
Agent Buffering Base Station Local Multicast Group Extending Multicast Group
Base Base Station Station
24 Low Latency Handoff Home Agent
Forwarding Base Station Foreign
Agent Buffering Base Station Local Multicast Group Extending Multicast Group
