Access Network Selection in Heterogeneous Networks

The future Heterogeneous Wireless Network (HWN) is composed of multiple Radio Access Technologies (RATs) and domains, therefore, new Radio Resource Management (RRM) schemes and mechanisms are necessary to benefit from the individual characteristics of each RAT and to exploit the gain resulting from jointly considering the whole set of the available radio resources in each RAT. An important RRM consideration for overall HWN stability, resource utilization, user satisfaction, and Quality of Service (QoS) provisioning is the selection of the most optimal and promising Access Network (AN) for a new service request. However, choosing the best RAT is not a trivial task and there are many parameters, criteria, and viewpoints to take into account when selecting the best AN. The RRM mechanism that is responsible for selecting the most optimal and promising AN for a new service request in the HWN is called the initial Access Network Selection (ANS). This book explores the issue of ANS in the HWN. Several ANS solutions that attempt to increase the user satisfaction, the operator benefits, and the QoS are designed, implemented, and evaluated.