Micro mobility in the IP networks

Wireless access to Internet services will become typical, rather than the exception as it is today. Such a vision presents great demands on mobile networks. Mobile IP represents a simple and scalable global mobility solution but lacks the support for fast handoff control and paging found in cellular telephony networks. In contrast, second- and third-generation cellular systems offer seamless mobility support but are built on complex and costly connection-oriented networking infrastructure that lacks the inherent flexibility, robustness, and scalability found in IP networks. This paper presents an overview and performance comparison of two of the main micro-mobility protocols, namely Cellular IP and Hierarchical Mobile IP with regards to the handoff process for UDP applications. The differences in the handoff quality of the two protocols are small and can be traced to design choices within the typical model. There are however significant differences regarding the processing requirement, routing efficiency and parameters relating to implementation and deployment.