Utility-based Intelligent Network Selection in Beyond 3G Systems

Development in wireless access technologies and multi-homed personal user devices is driving the way towards a heterogeneous wireless access network environment. Success in this arena will be reliant on the ability to offer an enhanced user experience. Users will plan to take advantage of the competition and always connect to the network which can best service their preferences for the current application. They will rely on intelligent network selection decision strategies to aid them in their choice. The contribution of this paper is to propose an intelligent utility-based strategy for network selection in this multi-access network scenario. A number of utility functions are examined which explore different user attitudes to risk for money and delay preferences related to their current application. For example we show that risk takers who are willing to pay more money get a better service.