Mobility in IPv6 Networks

Abstract

Mobility support in IPv6 networks recently has been released as an RFC, promising to continuously operate devices seamlessly roaming between IP networks. Associated with the paradigm of ubiquitous computing and communication, network technology is on the spot to deliver voice and videoconferencing as a standard internet solution. However, current roaming procedures are too slow to remain seamless for real-time applications, thus stimulating major discussions on improvements to meet real-time communication requirements. Multicast mobility still waits for a convincing design. The scope of this paper is twofold. At first we review common Internet mobility approaches. Concentrating the focus on real-time mobility we analysize the temporal behaviour of MIPv6 and re-examine the key technologies for optimisation. The second part of this paper is dedicated to mobility support for group conferencing. We introduce current approaches for seamless multicast extensions to Mobile IPv6. Key issues of multicast mobility are discussed. Both, analytically and by simulations comparisons are drawn between handover performance characteristics, with special focus on the M-HMIPv6 approach.