A. Helmy et al. (Eds.): MMNS 2006, LNCS 4267, pp. 158 – 170, 2006. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2006 Evaluation of an Intelligent Utility-Based Strategy for Dynamic Wireless Network Selection Olga Ormond 1 , Gabriel Miro-Muntean 2 , and John Murphy 1 1 Performance Engineering Laboratory, School of Computer Science and Informatics, University College Dublin (UCD), Dublin, Ireland {j.murphy, olga.ormond}@ucd.ie 2 Performance Engineering Laboratory, School of Electronic Engineering, Dublin City University (DCU), Dublin, Ireland munteang@eeng.dcu.ie Abstract. In the case of next generation wireless networks, different users with various multi-homed personal wireless devices will aim to exploit the full potential of the choice of services and applications available over different radio access networks. In their selection of a certain radio access network consumers will consider money and delay preferences for the current application and will rely on intelligent network-selection decision strategies to aid them in their choice. This paper describes the evaluation of an intelligent utility-based strategy for network selection in a multi-access network situation for transfer of large non real-time data files. A number of scenarios are examined which compare the proposed network selection strategy against other possible strategies. Test results show how by using this network selection strategy significant benefits in terms of combined average delay and cost per file transferred as well as transfer efficiency are obtained. Keywords: Heterogeneous Wireless Networks, Multi-homed Radio Terminals, User-centric Network Selection. 1 Introduction Future generations of wireless networks will see the integration and interoperability of a range of current and emerging technologies, and with that an extensive collection of novel and attractive services will be produced by an array of service providers [1]. In order to take advantage of the choice of access networks and the variety of services together with the advances in portable computing, user devices will be built as multi- homed devices. The user-centric view for next generation networks is a service oriented heterogeneous wireless network environment (SOHWNE) envisioned as a setting where users and service providers will be free from subscription to any one network operator. They can instead choose the most suitable transport offering from the available network providers for their current mobile terminal and application requirements [2]. End-to-end sessions will be under intelligent terminal control with