Moving toward seamless mobility: state of the art and emerging aspects in standardization bodies

The challenge to provide seamless mobility in the near future emerges as a key topic in various standardization bodies. This includes first of all the support of seamless handover between homogeneous networks. Distinct technologies—such as IEEE 802.11WLANs (Wi-Fi) and IEEE 802.16 MANs WiMAX—have recently augmented such support to existing standards to enable seamless homogeneous handover. Cellular networks, in contrast, already included this inherently from the start. Currently considerable effort goes into coupling of different radio access technologies. Therefore, the second key topic in standardization is seamless heterogeneous handovers. IEEE, IETF, as well as 3GPP consider different approaches toward architectures and protocols enabling seamless mobility management. In this work, we discuss recent and on-going standardization activities within IEEE, IETF, and 3GPP toward seamless homogeneous as well as heterogeneous mobility support.