Improving the wi-fi channel scanning using a decentralized IEEE 802.21 information service

Today, the possibility of ubiquitous mobility for data transport is both a reality and a challenge. The access can be made through different wireless technologies, e.g. Wi-Fi, Wi-Max and 3GPP networks. In the heterogeneous wireless environment, the network information discovery phase has a significant effect on the handover latency, especially discovering Wi-Fi networks. In this paper, we propose a new network discovery scheme using the IEEE 802.21 Media Independent Information Service (MIIS). In the proposed scheme, a Mobile Node (MN) obtains channel information from neighbor networks from a MIIS server and performs a selective scanning. Our idea introduces the notion of regional mobility areas, managed by different MIIS servers, in a decentralized way. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme enhances the MN´s performance if compared with the traditional scanning schemes.