Spectrum Handover Strategies for Cognitive Femtocell Networks

Cognitive femtocell is a promising technology for the next generation wireless networks to improve the efficiency of spectrum utilization, coverage, and to attain higher data rates for indoor communications. In this chapter, the new Cognitive Femtocell Switching Unit (CFSU) is proposed to support handover management for 10-20 cognitive femtocells as a local geographical cluster. Thus, CFSU acts as a service coordinator between femtocells and macrocell areas to improve spectrum utilization and coexistence. Then, the chapter presents solutions for spectrum handover to achieve guaranteed quality of radio service, spectrum utilization, and enable an excellent local handover management to reduce unnecessary handovers between femtocell base stations. The challenges and solutions that are presented in this chapter have the ability to maintain services by evaluating the requested quality of services.