Handover technique for wireless communications enabled devices

摘要

A method of triggering a network handover controlled by a communications device in a communications system comprising a plurality of networks with which the communications device can perform a handover operation to, the method comprising the steps of: determining a signal characteristic of each available candidate network in said communications system; forecasting a future value of said signal characteristic; determining a future handover margin for said signal characteristic of the network connection established by said communications device; determining if another available candidate network signal characteristic exceeds said handover margin at a future time, and if so, performing a handover operation to said other available candidate network, wherein said future handover margin for said signal characteristic is varied dynamically in dependence on said forecasted signal characteristic.

主权项

1. A method of triggering a network handover in a communications system comprising a mobile communications device and a plurality of network access points, wherein a plurality of said network access points provide at least one signal to said mobile communications device, the method comprising:
determining one or more signal characteristics of each communications channel available to the mobile communications device to establish communications with a network access in said communications system; forecasting a future value of each said signal characteristic; forecasting a future handover margin for each said signal characteristic; and determining if, at a predetermined future point in time, another communications channel is available to another network access point for the mobile communications device to handover to from the current communications channel established with the current network access point by determining if the future value of a signal characteristic of said other communications channel is predicted at that time to exceed the value of the equivalent signal characteristic of the current communications channel at that time by at least the value of the handover margin predicted at that time, wherein the future handover margin is dynamically dependent on the predicted probability of a trigger error occurring.