The evolution of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) network is expected to increase network performance and quality with reduced operational costs and complexity. It becomes critical to provide seamless mobility support in such heterogeneous access networks. In this article we examine the existing mechanisms and protocols and exploit the autonomic features based on the current specifications and the ongoing discussions within 3GPP. An autonomic hierarchical mobility management framework is proposed in order to improve the inter-system mobility support in 3GPP heterogeneous networks. Furthermore, the extension to Proxy Mobile IPv6 for performance enhancement is introduced and evaluated through simulations, which can provide fast handover support with reduced handover latency.
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