Handover latency measurement using variant of CAPWAP protocol

Abstract

The wireless LAN has become increasingly more popular over the past few years. Applications such as audio, video and voice have become important to users in a network environment. As the need for these real-time applications has increased, the handover latency during the movement of the mobile node (MN) has become crucial. A large number of wireless access points require a centralized architecture to manage, control and troubleshoot. The Control and Provision of Wireless Access Points (CAPWAP) Protocol designed by IETF allows Wireless Termination Points (WTP) to be managed centrally by an access controller (AC). This paper briefly describes the CAPWAP architecture and proposes a network setup in which the handover latency is reduced during the movement of mobile node. In particular, it shows if a Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) tunnel is produced between the access controllers, the Layer 3 handover latency is reduced. Results are obtained by implementing the Protocol in a test bed for Layer 2 and Layer 3 roaming for data and real-time video streaming.