Reducing handover time in heterogeneous wireless networks

A novel approach for handover in heterogeneous wireless networks is proposed in this paper. In our approach, the mobile terminal (MT) sends the handover-initiating message to the new base station instead of the old base station before it loses connection with its old base station. Hence, it reduces the time to perform handover, which is crucial for packet switched networks. Furthermore, we propose that MT activates its interfaces only in the measurement region, which is the region just before the MT enters the handover region.