Abstract
It is an important issue for mobile devices in wireless networks to utilize network resources effectively. This thesis focuses on two topics for efcient utilization of wireless network resources: RObust Header Compression (ROHC) and Service-Based Handoff. ROHC is designedoriginally to reduce packet header size. Decreasing packet size is useful to utilize network resource effectively. In WLANs, how to select an appropriate access point for mobilestation is important. Currently, the handoff decision in physical layer is made mostly based on the measurement of the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR). In general, better SNR indicates better radio quality. However it does not mean that the mobile station could get enough network resource in the new access point after handing off. A new handoff procedure called Service-Based Handoff is proposed. In addition to SNR, it also measures the contention levelto make a better selection of target access point.