Always Best Connected Heterogeneous Network Concept

The concept of always-best-connected (ABC) refers to a person’s ability to connect and use services with devices and access technologies that best suit to his or her needs. One of the recent standards to cover this concept is the 3rd Generation Partnership Project evolved packed system (EPS). It offers, an operator-friendly way to manage ABC connectivity in a heterogeneous network environment. However, the existing mobile devices are not supporting all of the requirements of EPS. At the same time, the standard is going through evolution where key elements such as mobility management protocols and procedures are still being developed. This research reviews and addresses constrains to the ABC concept through implementations in Android environment. The research shows that off-the-shelf devices are lacking the needed handover performance for real-time communication in a heterogeneous network. With the help of slightly modified device environments for simultaneous connections over different network access technologies, the results were approaching near real-time communication capability (delay around 100–200 ms depending of selected approach). The trade-offs in terms of energy consumption were measured. The discussion then leads to multihomed devices for really tapping the potential of seamless handovers with the ABC concept.