Reducing MAC layer handoff latency in IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs
Proceedings of the second international workshop on Mobility management & wireless access protocols
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We have developed a fast handoff scheme, called AuthScan, to reduce the time-consuming channel scanning latency in IEEE 802.11 wireless networks. AuthScan comprises two steps: First, a client caches its handoff history with beacon information. Second, when in need of handoff, a client transmits Authentication Request frames to the selected Access Points (APs) from the cache instead of broadcasting Probe Request frames in active scan to discover the next AP. Our proposed method does not require any support from the infrastructure network and contributes to finish the handoff procedure with the lowest latency when compared to approaches that improve the efficiency of channel scanning. Furthermore, AuthScan requires neither hardware upgrades to the client, nor any modification to currently deployed APs. In this paper, we present the theoretical handoff latency of AuthScan and compare it to other approaches.