Evaluation of Handover Implementations in Commercial GPRS/UMTS/HSDPA Networks

The results of the application of the authors' measurement method can be used to characterize handover duration in different scenarios and for different technologies. They have introduced the most relevant results obtained in field tests carried out in a vehicular scenario. Results show high variability in the performance of handovers, obtaining in numerous occasions a clear under performance of the handover procedures implemented in real networks. Moreover, results obtained for UMTS/HSDPA networks are not always better than GPRS results due to the fact that new technical specifications provided by 3GPP to improve handover procedures are not always available in commercial networks.