BIGAP — A seamless handover scheme for high performance enterprise IEEE 802.11 networks

Abstract

We demonstrate BIGAP, a novel architecture providing both high network performance as well as seamless handover in Enterprise IEEE 802.11 networks. The former is achieved by assigning different channels to co-located APs to fully utilize the available radio spectrum. The latter is achieved by providing a mechanism for below MAC-layer handover through exploiting the Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) capability in IEEE 802.11. In essence BigAP forces clients to change AP whilst they `believe' they are simply changing channel. BIGAP is fully compatible with 802.11 and requires no modifications to the wireless clients.