The University of British Columbia

This paper proposes a new method to facilitate seamless vertical handover (VHO) between UMTS and WLAN networks using the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP). The multi-homing capability and dynamic address reconfiguration (DAR) extension of SCTP are applied in a UMTS/WLAN overlay architecture to decrease VHO delay and improve throughput performance. Unlike techniques based on Mobile IP (MIP) or Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), the SCTP-based VHO scheme does not require the addition of components such as home/foreign agents or SIP server to the existing networks. Therefore the proposed scheme provides a network-independent solution that is preferred by service providers. Performance evaluations are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.