Mobility Protocols

March 2023

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 Why Mobility Protocols

◼ Satellites with IP-

enabled devices capture
videos, images and send
them to control centers
on earth

◼ Need to maintain
continuous connectivity
with remote computer

◼ Mobility protocols are

required to ensure
session continuity

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 IETF Solution to IP Mobility: Mobile IP

Correspondent
Node (CN)
▪ Employs mechanism Home Agent
similar to postal Packets from
service mail forwarding CN to MH
Internet
▪ Problems:
Encapsulated Packet
▪ Inefficient routing
Foreign Agent
▪ High handover latency
▪ Packet loss

Home Network
Decapsulated
Packets

Visiting Network

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 Network Mobility (NEMO)

◼ A collection of nodes moving as a unit (Example: airplanes, trains,

ships)
◼ Mobility can be managed in an aggregated way in NEMO
◼ Mobile Router acts as default gateway and manages mobility on
behalf of mobile network nodes

Internet

HA 4
 NEMO Architecture

▪ Inside NEMO
▪ MR: Mobile Router
▪ LFN: Local Fixed Node
▪ LMN: Local Mobile node
▪ VMN: Visiting Mobile Node Data
▪ Problems: path
▪ Routing through HA
▪ Heavy load on HA
▪ Drop in throughput during
handover

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 SIGMA

◼ Transport layer solution proposed by the researchers at the TNRL lab

◼ Exploits IP-diversity (having multiple IP addresses) of a mobile host
◼ Benefits:
 Establishes a new connection before disconnecting the old one
 Decouples location management from data transmission
 Less handover delay and packet loss, Optimal routing between MH-CN

CN
Location
Manager
Internet

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 Hierarchical Mobility Protocols: HMIPv6

◼ For high mobility of nodes,

frequent location updates
for HA
▪ Bandwidth wastage
▪ Overhead for HA
◼ Hierarchical Mobile IPv6
attempts to reduce
signaling by introducing Local
Local HA
new Mobility agent: MAP HA

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Network-based Mobility
Protocols

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 Terminal-based Mobility Protocol: Mobile IP

Correspondent
Node (CN)
▪ Employs mechanism Home Agent
similar to postal Packets from
service mail forwarding CN to MH
Internet
▪ Problems:
Encapsulated Packet
▪ MH must send updates to
HA Foreign Agent
▪ CoA changes in every
handoff
▪ High handover latency
Home Network
▪ Packet loss Decapsulated
Packets

Visiting Network

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 Problems of Terminal-based Mobility Protocols

◼ Problems:
 Requires low-end mobile devices to perform all kinds of mobility
signaling to maintain connectivity
 New CoA after each handoff, so the cache entry needs to be changed
 Wireless bandwidth wastage due to mobility signaling
 High handover latency
 Sub-optimal routing and tunneling

◼ Solution: Network-based Mobility Management

 Network takes care of all the mobility signaling
 Network entities are responsible to track the mobile device
 Network entities send required signaling messages on behalf the
mobile devices

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 Proxy Mobile IP: Network-based Mobility Management

▪ Local Mobility Anchor Local

Home Agent
• Local HA for the MH in
a PMIPv6 domain
• All traffic destined to
are routed through
LMA

▪ Mobility Anchor Gateway

• Access router that
tracks MH’s movement
in its access link
• Informs the LMA
through Proxy BU

Access Router
that detects
PMIPv6 node mobility
domain
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 PMIPv6 Operation

Binding
Cache entry
for MH

AAA
procedure

PMIPv6
domain

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Proxy Mobile IP Signaling

AAA: Authentication, Authorization

and Accounting
BCE: Binding Cache Entry
PBU: Proxy Binding Update
PBA: Proxy Binding Ack

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 Benefits of Network-based Mobility Management

◼ Battery power saving

◼ No modification in end devices
◼ Unique IP address in the whole LMA-domain
◼ Movement detection by the network
◼ Reduced signaling in the wireless access network
◼ Low handover latency
◼ Efficient tunneling
◼ Less signaling in each handoff
 No Duplicate Address Detection (DAD) in each handoff
 No return routability

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