BUFFERING PACKETS DESTINED FOR A MOBILE DEVICE WHILE THE MOBILE DEVICE MOVES FROM ONE NETWORK TO ANOTHER NETWORK TO PREVENT HANDOFF PACKET LOSS

摘要

A method and system for preventing packet loss during handoff of a mobile host between access networks. In accordance with an aspect of the invention, a home agent on a network maintains a FIFO (First In-First Out) buffer for every mobile host that it serves. When a packet destined for a particular mobile host is received at the home agent, it is assigned an incremental sequence number, encapsulated as an IP packet, and forwarded to the mobile host with the sequence number as an identifier. The packet and sequence number are thereafter stored in the buffer for a period of time after the packet was forwarded to the mobile host. After hand-off to the arriving network is completed, the mobile host sends the sequence number of the last-received IP packet to the home agent and the new care-of IP address. Using this sequence number, the home agent then determines whether any incoming packets had been routed to the previous care-of IP address. These are retrieved from the buffer, and resent to the new care-of IP address.