Micromobility supported WLAN networks: an empirical study of new IP protocol to support mobility and connection handovers

摘要

Today, end users have an increasing selection of different terminals and devices that support wireless access, as well as support for new technologies like 802.11 based WLANs. One limitation of traditional LAN and WLAN networks is that users have had to reconnect to network when their point of connection changes from one IP subnet to another. Seamless mobility across WLANs has been made easier for users by different solutions like bridging. Large-scale networks cannot be conveniently built by relying on these kinds of solutions. There are different approaches to manage the hand over between different subnets and access points. On this basis a new IP protocol implementation has been developed, which provides micromobility and seamless handover between WLAN base stations. This kind of approach and protocol has been tested in some large scale WLAN network installations. The results seem promising, but there are also challenges for further development which are required in order to achieve a standardised and well accepted interoperability between core WLAN-IP protocol implementations. Based on a routed topology, this kind of network approach offers many technical advantages when compared to bridged network implementations, reduced broadcast traffic, improved handoff times and more versatile security policies. This kind of technology may also offer new ways to build support commercial public access WLAN services, which integrate mobility, user management and location information into new type of service architectures.