A Zone-Based Media Independent Information Service for IEEE 802.21 Networks

Next generation networks integrate different wireless technologies, including Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, and 3GPP (UMTS, HSPA, and/or LTE), in which the mobile node (MN) has the opportunity to switch from one network to another, under an always best connected scheme. In such heterogeneous environment, discovering which types of network connectivity and services are available is a critical challenge. The IEEE 802.21 standard specifies a network information server entity providing network information within a geographical area by which the MN can discover a service or a network. In this paper, we propose a zone-based media independent information service using the IEEE 802.21 standard to accelerate the neighbor discovery procedure. In the proposed scheme, the access networks are associated and grouped in mobility zones, through an efficient set of rules, to minimize the amount of control messages flowing in the core network. Through a NS-2 based simulation, the results demonstrate that the proposed scheme reduces the neighbor discovery delay as well as the signaling overhead if compared with the standard MIIS deployment.