Patent ID: 7773563

Claim:
An apparatus for determining a vertical handoff using system load in a Wireless Local Access Network (WLAN), comprising: a Medium Access Control (MAC) layer; a link layer of a data link layer, for temporarily storing packets to be provided to the MAC layer, the packets destined for corresponding communicating nodes; and a physical layer for providing information about a data rate of a node requesting a handoff to the MAC layer, wherein the MAC layer calculates a total throughput of the WLAN using data rate information of the nodes corresponding to the packets received from the link layer, calculates an expected total throughput using the data rate information of the nodes and the data rate information of the node requesting the handoff, when the node performs the handoff, calculates a change in the total throughput of the WLAN by comparing the total throughput with the expected total throughput, and determines whether to allow the handoff for the node according to the change in the total throughput.