UMTS and WiMAX handover performance comparison

Convergence of telecommunications, Internet, entertainment, and information technologies is an important driver for the seamless provisioning of multimedia services across different network types. The emergence of various radio access technologies and wireless data communication networks has revolutionized the entire telecommunications industry. By and large, 3G UMTS has become a major wireless cellular technology and IEEE 802.16 WiMAX has been widely accepted as a convenient alternative to the conventional mobile communication networks. In mobile communication systems, handoff/handover controls are critical to ensure a seamless migration as devices move from place-to-place. This paper analyzes the performance of the existing types of handover applied in the third generation mobile networks and compares them with handover used in WiMAX.