IEEE 802.21: Media independence beyond handover

The IEEE 802.21 standard facilitates media independent handovers by providing higher layer mobility management functions with common service primitives for all technologies. Right after the base specification was published, several voices rose up in the working group advocating to broaden the scope of IEEE 802.21 beyond handovers. This paper aims at updating the reader with the main challenges and functionalities required to create a Media Independence Service Layer, through the analysis of scenarios which are being discussed within the working group: 1) Wireless Coexistence, and 2) Heterogeneous Wireless Multihop Backhaul Networks.