A survey by Ramar.E 090107119058, Final year ECE, RVS College of Engineering and Technology.

wireless communication Literature survey

The next-generation Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks, using the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) as the core technology based on the IEEE 802.16 family of standards, is evolving as a Fourth-Generation (4G) technology. With the recent introduction of mobility management frameworks in the IEEE 802.16e standard, WiMAX is now placed in competition to the existing and forthcoming generations of wireless technologies for providing ubiquitous computing solutions. However, the success of a good mobility framework largely depends on the capability of performing fast and seamless handovers irrespective of the deployed architectural scenario. Now that the IEEE has defined the Mobile WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e) MAC-layer handover management framework, the Network Working Group (NWG) of the WiMAX Forum is working on the development of the upper layers. However, the path to commercialization of a full-fledged WiMAX mobility frame work is full of research challenges. This article focuses on potential handover-related research issues in the existing and future WiMAX mobility framework. A survey of these issues in the MAC, Network and Cross-Layer scenarios is presented along with discussion of the different solutions to those challenges. A comparative study of the proposed solutions, coupled with some insights to the relevant issues, is also included. Efficient support of seamless handover management activity is an important requirement for communication technologies that are intended to be universally accepted in next-generation communication systems. Although MWiMAX has a number of attractive features, its handover framework is not free from drawbacks and has attracted significant research attention. This paper has not only identified the diversified MAC layer and potential network layer handover issues in MWiMAX, but also has highlighted those cross-layer (L2+L3) challenges that demand more attention. Out of these, the MAC-layer HHO issues related to the reduction and optimization of scanning activities and inter-handover CDT are still considered to be wide open, as the MWiMAX Forum has not reached a definite conclusion regarding whether and how to modify the existing standard to incorporate the changes suggested to date. On the other hand, the issues identified in Table III, on optimization of the network re-entry activities, load distributions, and those on the MDHO and FBSS presented in Table IV, have not yet attracted much research attention. Moving up the ladder, cross layer challenges have gained more attention than the solely layer 3 ones. This could be because the overall macro-mobility handover performance depends jointly on the performance are described by SAYAN KUMAR RAY.

As it is mentioned in [Handover thesis], a handover is generally performed when the quality of the link (measured in terms of the power of the received pilot) between the Node B and the UE on the move is decreasing and it is possible to hand over the connection to another cell with better radio characteristics. In previous 2G systems like GSM, the handover process tears down (i.e. literarily interrupts the connection for a short period of time, not noticeable by the end user) an existing connection and replaces it with a new connection to a new cell where the user is handed over with a different frequency (concept known as hard handover). This cell where the user is handed over is so-called the target cell. Since all cells in W-CDMA use the same frequency, in 3G systems it is possible to make the connection to the new cell before leaving the current cell and keeping always at least one radio link with a Node B. This concept is known as "soft" handover. Hard Handover however, is also used in 3G systems when it is needed to change the frequency of the carrier, either performing inter-frequency handover (i.e. change of UMTS carrier frequency for balancing load purposes) or performing Inter-RAT (Radio Access Technology) handover from UMTS to GSM.

Handover mechanism is extremely important in cellular network because of the cellular architecture employed to maximize spectrum utilization. Handover is the procedure that transfers an ongoing call from one cell to another as the users moves through the coverage area of cellular system. One way to improve the cellular network performance is to use efficient handover prioritization schemes when user is switching between the cells. In this paper I have presented an analytical framework that can enhance considerably the handover call mechanism in wireless network. Some advance schemes namely, guard channels, call admission control and handover queuing are discussed. All these of prioritizations schemes have a common characteristic reducing the call dropping probability at the expense of increased call blocking probability. Efficient prioritization scheme accommodates a number of new calls while guaranties the quality of service(QOS) of handover call. This idea is based on the neighboring cells have an overlapping (the area served by more than one cell) coverage area. Furthermore cell overlap and load balancing scheme is proposed to enhance the GSM cellular capacity using an overlapping coverage area. Capacity enhancement is achieved by balancing the load in neighboring cells. In this paper I introduce in greater depth the GSM network architecture and handover process which emphasizes the architecture, the several functional network elements and their dedicated channels associated with the call. Furthermore I have discussed the different performance metrics used to make the handover decision. Next I have presented the most important procedure of GSM handover initiation, handover types and their measurements reports to ensure mobility in GSM network and to emphasis the fact that handover in GSM network are very important to maintain the quality of a call. I also investigate the call handover prioritization schemes that prioritize handover calls in order to enhance the quality of service (QOS) of GSM wireless network. Extensive survey and analysis of the handover prioritization schemes that is guard channels, call admission control and handover queuing has been provided. Furthermore my research indicates that different system uses different schemes to execute the handover mechanism for a couple of enhancements to the handover mechanism are introduced and discussed. The idea of the cells overlap and load balancing scheme which tries to equalize the traffic over cells has been introduced. It has been analyzed theoretically and mathematically that capacity depends on the size of the overlapping area between adjacent cells, the numbers of channels per cells and distribution of traffic. The higher the overlapping area, the higher the trunking efficiency gains. The overlapping area can be used to reduce the call blocking and dropping probabilities. The attractive feature of this scheme is that it organizes traffic in distributed manner and doesnt increase the system complexity. At last I conclude that the implementation of mathematical formulas as mentioned in research will be great contribution in call handoff and for QOSs are described by JAHANGIR KHAN.

Integrated femtocell/macrocell networks, comprising a conventional cellular network overlaid with femtocells, offer an economically appealing way to improve coverage, quality of service, and access network capacity. The key element to successful femtocells/macrocell integration lies in its self organizing capability. Provisioning of quality of service is the main technical challenge of the femtocell/macrocell integrated networks, while the main administrative challenge is the choice of the proper evolutionary path from the existing macrocellular networks to the integrated network. In this article, we introduce three integrated network architectures which, while increasing the access capacity, they also reduce the deployment and operational costs. Then, we discuss a number of technical issues, which are key to making such integration a reality, and we offer possible approaches to their solution. These issues include efficient frequency and interference management, quality of service provisioning of the xDSL-based backhaul networks, and intelligent handover control. Integration of femtocellular networks with macrocellular networks, as well as with other non wireless networks, is essential for the successful deployment of the femtocell technology. We proposed here three possible architectures for the evolution of the integrated network architecture, which are QoS-based and which support cost-effective integration. We discussed a number of the technical issues that need to be addressed to make such integration a reality and we offer possible approaches to solutions of these issues: efficient frequency and interference management, dynamic QoS provisioning of the xDSL-based backhaul, and intelligent handover control. The concentrator-based FAPs deployment can support large number of FAPs, but cannot support QoS for dense FAPs deployment. Frequency allocation, interference mitigation, and handover control for the dense deployment of FAPs are very complex procedures. Thus, an intelligent and automatic control system with a concentrator is needed to maximize the utilization of frequency bands, to minimize of femtocell-macrocell and inter-femtocell interference, and to ensure seamless and fast handover. The SON-based coordination and cooperative communications among FAPs and macrocellular Base Stations can improve the spectral utilization and QoS performances. Such communications and message sharing can reduce the number of scans, allowing fast handovers. It can also reduce the interference by optimizing transmission power and configuring frequency spectrum dynamically. An SLA between an ISP operator and a mobile operator can ensure bandwidth availability of limited backhaul networks for femtocell users. Consequently, in the near future, the integrated femtocell/macrocell networks should be equipped with self-optimizing, auto-configuring, inter working, and inter-operability capabilities to meet the requirement of IMT-Advanced. Future research should concentrate on economic feasibility of the femtocell/macrocell integrated network and on QoS-guaranteed mechanisms for the integrated network architecture, including movable and portable FAPs, to improve cell coverage, cell edge performance, UEs movement detection, FAPs location estimation, and support of fast handover in dense areas are described by MOSTAFA ZAMAN CHOWDHURY.

Mobile networks planning and optimization has been an important area of research for the network operators. The existing mobile networks technologies namely Global System for Mobile (GSM) and General Packet Radio Systems (GPRS) have the same Radio Access technology. Universal Mobile Telecommunications Systems (UMTS) based on Wideband Code Division Multiple Access introduced a new Radio Access Technology. These technologies terminate at the same core network but they have different Radio Access Systems. Integrating and internetworking these systems is the main aim of this paper. With the introduction of the WCDMA technology to provide rich multimedia services to mobile users, the new air interface standardized by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project has introduced a new set of challenges to the network operators. The internetworking between the heterogeneous air interfaces between 2G and 3G is one of the main challenges. Deployment of the new WCDMA technology has become increasingly complicated. When starting the deployment of WCDMA on full scale, the existence of the two radio air interfaces will bring to the surface issues like coverage and capacity. Deployment of the new air interface (WCDMA), the operator will benefit from the coverage that is provided by GSM networks and the capacity that is provided by UMTS networks. The aim of this paper is to develop a simulator to investigate the best possible scenarios for network deployments. The proposed network mobile simulator will provide the operators with a tool to investigate mobile internetworking deployment scenario for multiple radio interfaces. In this paper we are proposing a simulator for intersystem internetworking for 2G/3G cellular networks. This approach of design a multi radio access technology simulator has not been proposed before. As a logical next step, we will be devising new algorithms and running studies based on real time scenarios from the network operators and to provide the operator with our study results, it will be very interesting to see how the simulator will behave based on these different scenarios and how close to the reality we can be as we intend to have real time implementations. Coverage and capacity is a main issue in the network planning and to devise the best scenario depends on the previous deployment of GSM/GPRS networks. Inter frequency handover is a major issue for services continuity and since the idea is to provide the customer with seamless services regardless of the cell that he/she is using and the underlying radio access technology is being used. The customer modes of operations dictate the behavior of the system and whether the customer is in circuit switching or packet switching mode are described by BELAL ABUHAIJA.

Next-generation wireless systems (NGWS) integrate different wireless networks, each of which is optimized for some specific services and coverage area to provide ubiquitous communications to the mobile users. It is an important and challenging issue to support seamless handoff management in this integrated architecture. The existing handoff management protocols are not sufficient to guarantee handoff support that is transparent to the applications in NGWS. In this work, a cross-layer (Layer 2 + 3) handoff management protocol, CHMP, is developed to support seamless intra and intersystem handoff management in NGWS. Cross-layer handoff management protocol uses mobiles speed and handoff signaling delay information to enhance the handoff performance of Mobile IP that is proposed to support mobility management in wireless IP networks. First, the handoff performance of Mobile IP is analyzed with respect to its sensitivity to the link layer (Layer 2) and network layer (Layer 3) parameters. Then, a cross-layer handoff management architecture is developed using the insights learnt from the analysis. Based on this architecture, the detailed design of CHMP is carried out. Finally, extensive simulation experiments are carried out to evaluate the performance of CHMP. The theoretical analysis and simulation results show that CHMP significantly enhances the performance of both intra and intersystem handoffs. In this work, we first discuss the different types of handoff in the next-generation wireless systems and the recent trend of link-layer-assisted handoff management protocol design. Then, we analyze the performance of handoff management protocols that use a fixed value of RSS threshold (Sth) to initiate the handoff process. Through our analysis, we observe that, when a fixed value of Sth is used, handoff failure probability increases when either speed or handoff signaling delay increases. Using the insights from our analysis, we develop a cross-layer handoff management protocol called CHMP, which estimates mobiles speed and predicts the handoff signaling delay of possible handoffs. CHMP uses this information to calculate a dynamic value of RSS threshold (Sath) for handoff initiation. Our analysis and simulation results show that CHMP significantly enhances the performance of both intra and intersystem handoffs. CHMP also significantly reduces the cost associated with the false handoff initiation because it achieves lower false handoff initiation probability are described by SHANTIDEV MOHANTY.

Next generation wireless network is envisioned as a convergence of different wireless access technologies providing the user enhanced connection any where any time to improve the systems resource utilization. It is likely that WLAN/HIPERLAN will become an important complementary technology to cellular networks and typically used to provide hotspot coverage where there is a high density of users. In such converged systems, co-existence of heterogeneous access technologies with largely different characteristics like data rate for cellular network (2 Mbps), WLAN 802.11b (11 Mbps) and HIPERLAN (54 Mbps) results in handoff asymmetry that differs from the traditional intra-network handoff (horizontal handoff). The seamless and efficient handoff between different access technologies (vertical handoff) is essential and remains a challenging problem. In this paper, it is devised to evaluate the performance of vertical handover in terms of received signal strength measurement with suitable propagation model in heterogeneous network for hotspot communication and it is v In converged wireless networks, efficient handoff management policies in hotspots are critical to overall system performance. This paper mainly focuses on RSS measurement using suitable propagation model for heterogeneous network employing cellular, WLAN and HIPERLAN. In hotspot area, vertical handover between CN to WLAN (mobile in) and WLAN to CN (mobile out) are analyzed. Performance of vertical handover decision is studied especially in hotspot regions where due attention has to be provided. In addition to this the coverage extent of WLAN/HIPERLAN and CN is also computed by comparing the actual RSS with mobiles threshold settings alidated by simulations are described by K.AYYAPPAN.

Nowadays, Wireless Mesh Network is the best solution for extending the coverage of Wireless LAN. Users move to wireless communication networks and expect the same level of performance as their wire line counterparts. Therefore, much research effort has been devoted to investigating how to optimally address the challenges posed by wireless multimedia communications. In this paper, the authors present Wireless Mesh Network and describe the handover schemes, leading to a new method for optimizing handover and a new power control approach. This paper introduces the soft handover concept and their advantages compared with the conventional hard handover. However, soft handover has the disadvantages of complexity and extra resource consumption. Therefore, optimization is crucial for guaranteeing the performance of soft handover are described by TRAN CONG HUNG.

This document is only a literature summary, intended for the purpose of understanding the available Inter-RAT (Radio Access Technology) Handover techniques. The References section at the end of this report encompasses the sources of information. This study is done as part of the course Advanced Telecommunications, provided at the department of Information Technology, LTH. The WLAN coverage will grow, and the number of applications and services will increase. This could be beneficial, for both operators and users. Operators have to increase the WLAN coverage and charge the user for their great applications and services. Users benefit from the increasing number of new and useful applications and services, they can use. They can also maintain the online connection, when moving from one wireless system to another. Seamless HOs within compatible technologies like 2G-3G has been established for some time now and operators are already looking into breaking barriers across other hierarchy of networks. Vertical HO is currently in the standardization state at 3GPP and propositions and designs are available in plenty to choose the best solution, keeping interoperability and backward compatibility in mind are described by GOUTAM RAMAMURTHY.

This paper looks potential approaches to interoperability as well as inter-technology mobility using Long Term Evolution (LTE) between different generations of wireless communication. Focus is given on how these approaches can be used in interoperable service deployment, access technology integration, service continuity and smooth migration to LTE by maximizing the use of legacy networks coverage. One of the most important interoperability criterions is the handover latency. Using NCTUNS6 simulator, it is shown that LTE (4G) provides less handover latency in comparison to that of other generations of wireless communication system for heterogeneous environment. LTE is considered as the basis of next generation mobile Internet. LTE Standards accommodate the use of Mobile Internet Protocol (MIP) to support inter-technology mobility between LTE and other generations. In our work, different ways of providing interoperability by LTE and use of interfaces for flexible interoperability are discussed. In addition, we focus on the variation of network architecture of different generations including LTE, which leads to the interoperability. Moreover, method of migration from 3G to 4G is highlighted. Result of handover latency for homogeneous network has shown that handover latency in LTE is less than GPRS (2G) and IEEE 802.11b (3G). This result proves that LTE (4G) provides better interoperability performance than other generations. In our future work, we will determine handover latency for heterogeneous environments are described by DILSHAD MAHJABEEN.

Uncontrollable development of wireless and mobile communication technology aims to provide the seamless continuous connection to access various wireless technologies and to have connection with the best network which provides the best quality of service (QoS). Each application requires different QoS, so the network selection may vary accordingly. To achieve this goal and to select the best network for a mobile terminal when moving from one network to another, it is necessary to have a good decision making algorithm which decides the best network for a specific application that the user needs based on QoS parameter. This paper presents an overview of handoff types, handoff process, and classification of vertical handoff, parameters required, existing work and the comparison table. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of vertical handover decision schemes. Todays hot research area in wireless network is to find the best vertical handoff decision algorithm which meets the requirements of both user and network providers are described by A. BHUVANESWARI.

With the increasing demands for new data and real-time services, wireless networks should support calls with different traffic characteristics and different Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees. In addition, various wireless technologies and networks exist currently that can satisfy different needs and requirements of mobile users. Since these different wireless networks act as complementary to each other in terms of their capabilities and suitability for different applications, integration of these networks will enable the mobile users to be always connected to the best available access network depending on their requirements. This integration of heterogeneous networks will, however, lead to heterogeneities in access technologies and network protocols. To meet the requirements of mobile users under this heterogeneous environment, a common infrastructure to interconnect multiple access networks will be needed. Although IP has been recognized to be the de facto protocol for next-generation integrated wireless, for inter-operation between different communication protocols, an adaptive protocol stack is also required to be developed that will adapt itself to the different characteristics and properties of the networks (Akyildiz et al., 2004a). Finally, adaptive and intelligent terminal devices and smart base stations (BSs) with multiple air interfaces will enable users to seamlessly switch between different access technologies. For efficient delivery of services to the mobile users, the next-generation wireless networks require new mechanisms of mobility management where the location of every user is proactively determined before the service is delivered. Moreover, for designing an adaptive communication protocol, various existing mobility management schemes are to be seamlessly integrated. In this chapter, the design issues of a number of mobility management schemes have been presented. Each of these schemes utilizes IP-based technologies to enable efficient roaming in heterogeneous network (Chiussi et al., 2002).Efficient handoff mechanisms are essential for ensuring seamless connectivity and un interrupted service delivery. A number of handoff schemes in a heterogeneous networking environment are also presented in this chapter. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces the concept of mobility management and its two important components- location management and handoff management. Section 3 presents various network layer protocols for macro-mobility and micro-mobility. Section 4 discusses various link layer protocols for location management In this chapter, a comprehensive discussion has been made on mobility management in next-generation wireless networks. Issues in location registration and handoff management have been identified and several existing mechanisms have been presented. Since global roaming will be an increasing trend in future, attention has been paid on mechanisms which are applicable in heterogeneous networks. Media Independent Handover Services of IEEE 802.21 standard as an enabler for handover has also been presented. Security and authentication issues in next-generation heterogeneous networks are discussed briefly. Finally, the chapter concludes by highlighting some open areas of research in mobility Management are described by JAYDIP SEN.

WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability Microwave Access) is a wireless networking system based on the IEEE 802.16 standards family. The version 802.16-2004 ([1]), published in October 2004, supports various kinds of network topology. One of topology is called PMP (Point-ToMultipoint).Within this topology every Mobile Station (MS) communicate directly via Base Station (BS). The second topology is denoted MESH. In this mode, two MSs communicate without employment of BS.The 802.16-2004 does not support handovers between cells. Consequently, 802.16-2004 allows only a fixed or nomadic access. Handover procedures are implemented in newest version of 802.16e([2]); standardized in September of 2005. This version specifies handovers for portability and simple or full mobility of users. Rest of paper is organized as follows. Next section describes WiMAXs two lowest layers (physical layer and Medium Access Control layer). The third section generally describes the handover types used in UMTS. The fourth section focuses on the handovers in the WiMAX networks. In the fifth section is provided a comparison between handovers in the UMTS and WiMAX. The last section presents our conclusions. This paper analyzes the current handover situation in the UMTS and WiMAX networks. The UMTS technology was designed naturally as a mobile network. However, in the first versions of WiMAX standards, the mobility was not supported at all. By the time became a need of user mobility. Because of this reason several types of handover in WiMAX technology was introduced. The first type, hard handover, is analogical to hard handover in UMTS. In both cases the MS (in UMTS called UE) communicates with just one BS(denoted Node B in UMTS). Hard handover allows only low speed mobility (portability or simple mobility). For higher speed mobility (full mobility)were FBSS and MDHO implemented. MDHO is similar as soft (softer) handover in UMTS technology. MS (UE) can communicate simultaneously with all BSs (Node Bs) in active set. In uplink (downlink), BSs (MS) are capable of diversity combining of received signals. FBSS was created as a new type of handover in WiMAX. In contrast to MDHO, in FBSS the data are sent to all BSs in active set but without diversity combining. Further, the data are processed in anchor BS only. An advantage of this handover type is not using of explicit handover signaling messages when anchor BS is changed are described by Z. BECVAR.

We present a seamless handoff solution, called Universal Seamless Handoff Architecture (USHA). USHA is simple and requires minimal modification to the current Internet infrastructure. Therefore, it is instantly ready for real-world deployment. Using test bed experiments, we evaluate USHA by observing TCP (FTP downloading) behavior various vertical handoff scenarios. The results shows that USHA can successfully maintain the application connectivity in all cases. Furthermore, the results also shows that when handoff from a low capacity link to a high capacity link, there is no service latency caused by the handoff; whereas when the handoff is from high capacity link to a lower capacity link, the non-negligible latency could not be alleviated unless early handoff notification can be provided. In this paper, we described a simple and practical vertical handoff solution, called USHA. USHA is seamless and with minimal changes on the current Internet infra structure. Using test bed experiments, we evaluated USHA in both indoor and outdoor mobility scenarios are described by TONY SUN.

Seamless continuity is the main goal and challenge in fourth generation Wireless networks (FGWNs), to achieve seamless connectivity HANDOVER technique is used, Handover mechanism are mainly used when a mobile terminal (MT) is in overlapping area for service continuity. In Heterogeneous wireless networks main challenge is continual connection among the different networks like WiFi, WiMax, WLAN, WPAN etc. In this paper, Vertical handover decision schemes are compared and Grey relational analysis is used to choose the best network from the available Visitor networks (VTs) for the continuous connection by the mobile terminal. In our work we mainly concentrated to the handover decision phase and to reduce the processing delay in the period of handover. In our work, we have compared the schemes of vertical handover decision in the heterogeneous wireless networks. The main observation of the schemes to reduce the processing delays and a trust handover decision is done in a heterogeneous wireless networks. In this paper we proposed GRA as a decision making for the Vertical decision schemes to select the best network from the visitor network .Our main goal is in the decision phase of the handover phases to take decision to which VN the mobile terminal to connect by different decision algorithms are described by K. SAVITHA.

In wireless communication new technologies emerges regularly with faster data rates and larger coverage area. Therefore the forthcoming challenge is to make the best possible use of the available heterogeneous network. For connecting mobile between heterogeneous networks vertical handoff is mandatory. IP Multimedia Subsystem is an emerging architecture for interworking of heterogeneous networks. In this paper we used WLAN/WiMAX/LTE heterogeneous networks. Coupling architectures such as tight coupling and loose coupling are considered. In order to reduce the latency two mechanisms such as neighbor bandwidth reservation and gateway relocation are employed. The parameters such as vertical handoff delay, Mobile scanning interval activity, neighboring advertisement received are obtained. From the simulation it is inferred that tight coupling with gateway relocation is performing better from handover point of view.

Heterogeneous mobile networks such as WLAN, LTE and WiMAX require efficient handoff mechanisms to guarantee seamless connectivity. In this work four different types of inter working architectures were designed between WLAN, LTE and WiMAX networks namely: tightly coupled integration, loosely coupled integration, tight coupling with neighbor reservation and with gateway relocation. Consideration of vertical handover is made by locating the mobile node in a region where WLAN, LTE and WiMAX coverage coexist. It was found that tight coupling with neighbor reservation and with gateway relocation provides betterhandover performance. The network simulation also shows that interworking architecture withgateway relocation outperforms the other coupling methodologies due to the reason that a secondary path is established prior to handover and it results in less handover delay, lesser packets dropped and high signal to noise ratio. It was found that handover delay is lesser than the voice inactivity time with neighbor reservation and with gateway relocation and hence we can assure that seamless connectivity can be achieved are described by PARTHIBAN.

The importance of wireless communication is increasing day by day throughout the world due to cellular and broadband technologies. Everyone around the world would like to be connected seamlessly anytime anywhere through the best network. The 4G wireless system must have the capability to provide high data transfer rates, quality of services and seamless mobility. In 4G, there are a large variety of heterogeneous networks. The users for variety of applications would like to utilize heterogeneous networks on the basis of their preferences such as real time, high availability and high bandwidth. When connections have to switch between heterogeneous networks for performance and high availability reasons, seamless vertical handoff is necessary. The requirements like capability of the network, handoff atency, network cost, network conditions, power consumption and users preferences must be taken into consideration during vertical handoff. In this paper, we have extracted the requirements of a vertical handoff from the literature surveyed. The evaluation of the existing work is also being done on the basis of required parameters for vertical handoff. A sophisticated, adaptive and intelligent approach is required to implement the vertical handoff mechanism in 4G wireless networks to produce an effective service for the user by considering dynamic and non dynamic parameters. The vertical handoff will remain an essential component for 4G wireless networks due to switching of mobile users amongst heterogeneous networks. In this paper, we have described a few works in vertical handoff mechanisms and exposed a summary of decision algorithms for vertical handoff in literature. The 4G wireless networks create new handoff challenges due to multiple requirements for vertical handoff. In this paper, the requirements of a vertical handoff or 4G wireless network were proposed. The requirements include high bandwidth, low handoff latency, lower power consumption, minimum network cost, balanced network load, network security, user preferences, throughput and RSS of a switching network. Establishing the requirements of a vertical handoff mechanism for 4G wireless networks is a critical milestone in the development of vertical handoff mechanism for 4G. In this paper, the evaluation of existing vertical handoff mechanisms is also done against the requirements stated in the paper. The evaluation indicate the need to have a VHO mechanism for 4G wireless networks that has the ability to satisfy maximum number of requirements. However, it is difficult to consider all the parameters during designing the decision model for VHO but if we consider more parameters, the outcome of the decision mechanism would definitely improve are described by MANDEEPKAUR GONDARA.