Connection Cost Based Handover Decision for Offloading Macrocells by Femtocells

Femtocells can offload macrocells and reduce a cost of transmitted data in wireless networks. If a connection via the femtocell is of a lower cost than via the macrocell, a time spent by users connected to the femtocells should be maximized. This leads to a reduction of the overall cost of user’s connection. Besides, a prolongation of the time spent by users in the femtocells reduces load of the macrocells. Therefore, an extension of handover is presented in this paper. The extension consists in consideration of the connection cost together with user’s requirements on a service quality. To that end, a conventional handover decision is modified to achieve higher efficiency in prolongation of the time spent by the users in the femtocells. As the results show, the user who does not require high quality of service spent more time connected to the femtocells and thus the macrocell can be offloaded.