In order to execute a handover processes in a GSMor UMTS Radio Access Network, each cell has a list of neighborsto which such handovers may be made. Today, these lists arestatically configured during network planning, which does notallow for dynamic adaptation of the network to changes andunexpected events such as a cell failure. This paper advocatesan autonomic, decentralized approach to dynamically configureneighboring cell lists. The main contribution of this work isa novel protocol, called DOC, which detects and continuouslytracks the coverage overlaps among cells. The protocol executeson a spanning tree where the nodes are radio base stations andthe links represent communication channels. Over this tree, nodesperiodically exchange information about terminals that are intheir respective coverage area. Bloom filters are used for efficientrepresentations of terminal sets and efficient set operations. Theprotocol aggregates Bloom filters to reduce the communicationoverhead and also for routing messages along the tree. Usingsimulation, we study the system in steady state, when a basestation is added or a base station fails, and also during theinitialization phase where the system self-configures.
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