Seamless handover of IPTV streams in a wireless LAN network

A robust mechanism to enable seamless handover of streamed IPTV in a WLAN is presented. Handover in a wireless network is usually based on signal strength measurements, but that approach does not consider levels of congestion within the network. Here, the case of stationary nodes with varying levels of network congestion is considered. A scheme that analyzes the jitter is used to establish the relationship between congestion and loss in WLANs. This Moving Average of Negative Jitter is used as the basis of a handover scheme which can minimize loss. The handover scheme uses a client with two simultaneous connections to the same server through two separate WLANs, and it is shown that the client can compare the jitter in the two streams to determine which network delivers the best performance; this information is then used to determine when to perform a handover. The proposed scheme is implemented and results are presented that show the successful handover of an RTP over UDP stream in a live WLAN environment. The test scenario used is aimed at Over-The-Top service delivery, but the core algorithm is expected to be more broadly applicable.