Question one

(a) What is Mobility?

A person who moves between different geographical locations.
Between different networks.
Between different communication devices.
Between different applications
A device that moves Between different geographical locations Between different networks
(b) What are two different kinds of mobility?
User Mobility: It refers to a user who has access to the same or similar telecommunication services at
different places. Device Portability: many mechanisms in the network and inside the device have to
make sure that communication is still possible while the device is moving.
(c) Find out the characteristics while device can thus exhibit during communication.
Fixed and Wired, Mobile and Wired, Fixed and Wireless, Mobile and Wireless
(d) What is mobile computing?
Mobile Computing is an umbrella term used to describe technologies that enable people to access
network services anytime and anywhere.
(e) What are applications of Mobile Computing?
Vehicles, Emergencies, Business, Replacement of wired networks, Infotainment,
Location dependent services, Mobile and wireless devices
Question Two
(a) Why the traditional IP cannot be used in a mobile network. What are the main differences between
the traditional IP and the mobile IP? How does mobile IP support mobile hubs?
IP is responsible for routing a packet to any host, connected to the Internet, uniquely identified by
an assigned IP address. The nodes in the LAN are assigned an address based on the LAN address.
In the traditional IP addressing scheme, when a host moves to a different location, it may move to
another network. As a result, it needs to change its IP address. The mobile IP allows mobile
computers to stay connected to the Internet regardless of their location and without changing their
IP address. The traditional IP does not support user mobility. Mobile IP was created by extending
IP to enable users to keep the same IP address while travelling to a different network.
(b) Briefly explain the limitations of IPv4 and how they are overcome by IPv6.
It would not be able to support the enormous number of users that are expected to use Internet in
a couple of years. Also IP does not distinguish among the different applications, and treats all
applications equally. A streaming video requires that video frames be transmitted without delay
jitters, whereas applications such as e-mail can tolerate considerable delay. This needed the

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development of a new version of IP called Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) and also sometimes
referred to as IP Next Generation or IPng.

(c) Briefly explain the following terms associated with mobile IP:
Home Network (HN), Home Address (HA), Foreign Agent (FA), Correspondent Node (CN), Care-
of-Address (COA).
Home Network: The home network of a mobile device is the network within which the device
receives its identifying IP address (home address). In other words, a home network is a subnet to
which a mobile node belongs to as per its assigned IP address. Within the home network, there is
no need of mobile IP.
Home Address (HA): The home address of a mobile device is the IP address assigned to the device
within its home network. The IP address on the current network is known as home address.
Foreign Agent (FA): The foreign agent is a router in a foreign network that functions as the point
of attachment for a mobile node when it roams to the foreign network. The packets from the home
agent are sent to the foreign node which delivers it to the mobile node. Foreign Network: The
foreign network is the current subnet to which the mobile node is visiting. It is different from
home network. In other words, a foreign network is the network in which a mobile node is
operating when away from its home network.
Correspondent Node (CN): The home agent is a router on the home network serving as the anchor
point for communication with the mobile node. It tunnels packets from a device on the Internet,
called a correspondent node (CN), to the roaming mobile node.
Care-of-Address (COA): It is the address that is used to identify the present location of a foreign
agent. The packets sent to the MN are delivered to COA.
(d) Briefly explain the discovery of care-of-address in the context of movement of a mobile to a foreign
network.
The discovery of the care-of-address consists of four important steps. 1. Mobile agents advertise
their presence by periodically broadcasting the agent advertisement messages. 2. The mobile node
receiving the agent advertisement message observes whether the message is from its own home
agent and determines whether it is on the home network or on a foreign network. Foreign agents
send messages to advertise the available care-of addresses. If a mobile host has not heard from the
foreign agent to which its current care-of-address belongs, it takes up another care-ofaddress. 3. If
a mobile node does not wish to wait for the periodic advertisement, it can send out agent
solicitation messages that will be responded toby a mobility agent.
(e) Briefly explain the agent advertisement procedure of mobile IP.

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 Foreign agents send messages to advertise the available care-of addresses. • Home agents send
advertisements to make themselves known. • Mobile hosts can issue agent solicitations to actively
seek information. • If a mobile host has not heard from the foreign agent to which its current care-
of-address belongs, it takes up another care-of-address.
Question Three
(a) Define MANET.
MANET - Mobile Adhoc NETworks. Continuously self-configuring, infrastructure-less
network of mobile devices connected without wires
(b) List at least five advantages of MANET.
• Independence from central network administration
• Self-configuring, nodes are also routers
• Self-healing through continuous re-configuration
• Scalable-accommodates the addition of more nodes
• Flexible-similar to being able to access 'the Internet from many different locations
• Ease of deployment
• Speed of deployment
• Decreased dependence on infrastructure
• Reduced administrative cost
• Supports anytime and anywhere computing
(c) What are the limitations of MANET? (at least five limitations)
•Each node must have full performance
•Throughput is affected by system loading
•Reliability requires a sufficient number of available nodes
•Large networks can have excessive latency (time delay), which affects some applications
•Limited wireless range
•Hidden terminals
•Packet losses due to transmission errors
•Routes changes
•Devices heterogeneity
•Battery power constraints
•Link changes are happening quite often
•Routing loop may exist
(d) Define what handover is and briefly explain two types of handover.
 Handover is a process in mobile communication in which cellular transmission (voice or data) is
transferred from one base station (cell site) to another without losing connectivity to the cellular
transmission. There are two types of handover.
 Soft handover and
 hard handover.
 Hard handover: Is one in which the channel source cell is released before the channel in the target
is engaged. In this type of handover, the connection to the source is broken just before or along
with when the connection to the target is made. It is also called break before making handover.
 Soft handover: Is one in which the source cell is retained and works in parallel with the target cell
for a while. In this case, connection to the target cell is established before connection to the source

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 is broken. Soft handover allows a parallel connection between several channels to provide better
service. It is very effective in areas with poor coverage.

(e) Briefly explain at least four reasons which may cause handover in mobile communications.
 When the phone is moving away from the area covered by one cell and entering the area covered
by another cell the call is transferred to the second cell in order to avoid call termination when the
phone gets outside the range of the first cell;
 When the capacity for connecting new calls of a given cell is used up and an existing or new call
from a phone, which is located in an area overlapped by another cell, is transferred to that cell in
order to free-up some capacity in the first cell for other users, who can only be connected to that cell;
 When the user behaviour changes, e.g. when a fast-travelling user, connected to a large, umbrella-
type of cell, stops then the call may be transferred to a smaller macro cell or even to a micro cell in
order to free capacity on the umbrella cell for other fast-traveling users and to reduce the
potential interference to other cells or users (this works in reverse too, when a user is detected to be
moving faster than a certain threshold, the call can be transferred to a larger umbrella-type of cell in
order to minimize the frequency of the handovers due to this movement).
 When the channel used by the phone becomes interfered by another phone using the same channel
in a different cell, the call is transferred to a different channel in the same cell or to a different channel
in another cell in order to avoid the interference;
 Also handover may be induced in order to reduce the interference to a smaller neighboring cell
due to the "near–far" effect even when the phone still has an excellent connection to its current
cell.

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