Basically, Vertical handover (VHO) decision relies on the selection of the ‘best’ available network that could meet the QoS requirements for the end-user. Therefore, a network selection mechanism is required to help mobile users choose the best network; that is, one that provides always best connected (ABC) that suits users needs and is able to change dynamically with the change in conditions. The definition of best depends on a number of different aspects such as user personal preferences, device size and capabilities, application requirements, security, present network traffic, and network signal strength. This work proposes to assign weight to all the above stated aspects so as to compute ABC. The novelty of this work is to exploit intelligent agents for weight calculations after analyzing the explored parameters for various networks. An analysis and a comparison of both services and factors for different networks are also provided in the paper.
Basically, Vertical handover (VHO) decision relies on the selection of the ‘best’ available network that could meet the QoS requirements for the end-user. Therefore, a network selection mechanism is required to help mobile users choose the best network; that is, one that provides always best connected (ABC) that suits users needs and is able to change dynamically with the change in conditions. The definition of best depends on a number of different aspects such as user personal preferences, device size and capabilities, application requirements, security, present network traffic, and network signal strength. This work proposes to assign weight to all the above stated aspects so as to compute ABC. The novelty of this work is to exploit intelligent agents for weight calculations after analyzing the explored parameters for various networks. An analysis and a comparison of both services and factors for different networks are also provided in the paper.