Introducing L3 network-based mobility management for mobility-unaware IP hosts

Abstract

The design of an efficient and intelligent mobility management scheme is one of the major research challenges for next-generation wireless networks. While conventional mobility solutions focus on host-based mobility, the concept of network-based mobility management has only recently emerged. Consequently, there is a limited understanding of the corresponding requirements and solution mechanisms. In this paper we identify fundamental requirements for providing the network operated mobility service for mobility unaware hosts, assuming legacy user terminals which are not implementing or using any mobile extensions or protocol stacks, while moving through visited networks. We analyze three different mobility management schemes presently being considered for diverse deployment scenarios within several standardization organizations (e.g. IETF, 3GPP, WiMAX Forum), namely the Proxy Mobile IPv4, Proxy Mobile IPv6, and the Network-based Localized Mobility Management (NetLMM). As there are currently no accepted standards for network-based mobility, this paper focuses on providing a comparative analysis using qualitative and functional merits in order to highlight potential advantages and shortcomings of each evaluated mobility scheme, and provide guidelines for feasible functional improvements