Virtual foreign agent in a PON access network to allow soft-handover of high-speed IP terminals in micro-cells

摘要

In this paper we investigate the usage of PON mobile access network to support micro-mobility in a Mobile IP environment for fast moving terminals. High-speed terminals cause frequent change in access point, resulting in frequent FA updates, and loss in connectivity, as packets might be lost during Fa updates. PON is an efficient and economical way to offer fiber distribution to a large number of access points. The inheritied broadcast functionality is exploited in order to spread the FA over several nodes, thereby reducing the need for FA updates, as well as reducing the usage of IP addresses. To reduce the number of packets lost during FA update, packets that are still routed to the old FA are transferred to the new FA until the HA is updated. Simulations shows that the average number of packets lost for each FA change stabilize at 0.45-0.5 packets for transmission speeds up to 2M.