AHT: Application-Based Handover Triggering for Saving Energy in Cellular Networks

Nowadays, multiple heterogeneous cellular networks coexist simultaneously, and mobile devices can freely select the appropriate network for data communication. Our measurement studies show that a barrier exists between heterogeneous cellular networks and applications. Triggering handovers between various cellular networks can break the barrier and present the promise of saving energy for cellular data communication. However, most existing network handover triggering methods do not adequately incorporate the characteristics of applications and may cause unnecessary handovers. In this paper, we propose an application-based handover triggering method called AHT. According to the applications that are used by users, AHT triggers handovers between high-performance and energy-efficient cellular networks, thus conserving energy. Based on the user experience (UX) requirements, AHT classifies applications into UX- sensitive and insensitive ones. AHT determines whether and when to switch to the high-performance network (e.g., LTE) in accordance with the predicted UX-sensitive application and estimated usage time, and triggers handovers to the energy- efficient network (e.g., UMTS) through an idle timer. We evaluate the performance of AHT with real application usage traces. Experimental results show that AHT saves up to 60.7% and 32.8% energy compared with the pure LTE network transmission and the screen-based handover triggering scheme Intelli3G, respectively.