Mobility support services using mobility aware access networks

摘要

A mobility support technique provides home agents and foreign agents in mobility aware access networks. Participating mobile hosts are assigned a home address that is used by other hosts as the mobile host's address. The home address actually addresses the home agent provided in the mobility aware access network. The home address provides additional privacy to the mobile host because it does not identify the mobile host's home premises network where the mobile host resides permanently absent any mobility of the mobile host. By providing home agents and foreign agents in a mobility aware access network, the agents may cooperatively establish optimal routing paths for data transmitted to a mobile host. The agents may identify a pseudo home agent, an agent in a mobility aware access network located near to a transmitting mobile host, that acts as the home agent of a destination mobile host. The pseudo home agent tunnels data directly to the destination mobile host without requiring the data to be routed first to the true home agent. In this regard, the pseudo home agent establishes a more direct routing path between the transmitting and destination mobile hosts.