HANDOVER METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING MOBILE IPTV SERVICE OVER HETEROGENEOUS WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

摘要

Disclosed herein is a handover method and apparatus for providing mobile Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) service over wireless communication networks. The handover method includes checking whether the strength of a signal received from a first base station of a serving first wireless network falls within a predetermined first threshold range; if the strength of the signal falls within the range, checking whether the strength of a signal received from at least one base station of a second wireless network is higher than a second threshold value required for handover; estimating the velocity and direction of a Mobile Node (MN) using location information received from a satellite; predicting a handover target base station using the estimated velocity and estimated location information; and, if the predicted target base station is one of base stations having the second threshold value, performing handover to the target base station.