Heterogeneous wireless networks are deployed to handle growing mobile data traffic and to enhance the indoor service quality. Mobility management to improve quality of service (QoS) and user satisfaction in heterogeneous wireless networks is studied in this dissertation. Since there are many different radio access technologies (RATs) and small cells in heterogeneous wireless environments, efficient network discovery and seamless handover are essential for mobility management. Thus, efficient scanning and offloading schemes for small cells are proposed in this dissertation. Additionally, a multi-connection selection scheme is proposed to take advantage of multiple concurrent transmissions over different networks.
Small cell is considered a promising solution for indoor service enhancement. However, the conventional scanning scheme is not suitable to be directly employed for scanning small cells in terms of efficiency and scan duration. Therefore, efficient scanning schemes for small cells are proposed. The proposed schemes can achieve a lower scanning overhead by reducing the number of small cells needed to be scanned. The evaluation results show that the proposed scanning schemes can reduce the control message overhead, scan duration, and energy consumption.
Mobile network operators can reduce traffic traversing mobile core networks through offload technology. As a result, additional deployment of network elements to handle excessive traffic can be reduced. Meanwhile, users can obtain benefits from reduced propagation delay, which improves user experience. The three-stage offloading algorithm is proposed, and the simulation results show that the proposed scheme can select bearers to offload according to the utilization of networks and the user's preferences. Consequently, the cost of all bearers can be equalized, or delay can be reduced, or signaling overhead and complexity can be reduced in accordance with the user preferences.
Mobile terminals equipped with multiple wireless interfaces can achieve better QoS by combining transmissions over several RATs. Network selection plays a key role in such a scenario. A multi-connection selection scheme that considers the characteristics of each RAT and the QoS requirements is presented. The required bandwidth is introduced as a new network selection criterion in the proposed scheme. User preferences are also considered, since each RAT has different properties such as access cost, energy consumption, and data rate. In addition, multi-connection selection schemes for multiple services are proposed and evaluated. The evaluation results show that the proposed scheme performs better than conventional signal strength-based selection schemes.