User-Activity Dependent Paging Scheme in a Multi-Cell Campus Wireless LAN Environment

Abstract

IEEE 802.11 Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) is becoming the prevailing technology for the broad band wireless Internet access. However, IEEE 802.11 WLAN has been discovered to be naturally weak in supporting the mobility of mobile host (MH) when there is no traffic to be served for the MHs. Quite a number of commendable works have been done to introduce paging in WLAN and, thereby properly manage scarce network resources such as bandwidth and power. In this work, the authors consider it pertinent to go a step further and design a paging algorithm for campus WLAN, which will take advantage of the unique campus setting and activities. We, therefore, propose a User-Activity Dependent Paging Scheme (UADPS) in a Multi-Cell Campus WLAN Environment; a paging algorithm that considers mobile devices in a multi cell WLAN. This is because we believe that such algorithm will not only be simple to implement, but will make a great positive impact on resource savings for on-campus WLAN users. Results obtained shows that the UADPS utilizes less network resources in searching for an MH when compared to the IEEE 802.11 power save mode algorithm.