Vertical Handover Between Wireless Service Providers

We discuss the dynamics of user handover between two coexisting wireless service providers and analyze the consequent exploitation of the offered diversity by the use of multi-standard terminals. We show that the potential capacity benefits of mobile-initiated vertical handovers (VHO) are substantial, but it is important to choose the correct VHO criteria in order to achieve optimum load balancing and equilibrium states (both globally and socially). A fast-handover scheme, based on replicator dynamics is presented, which exhibits fast convergence to the socially optimal states by allowing only a subset of the necessary VHOs among the air interfaces to take place.