Experimental evaluation of a handover optimization solution for multimedia applications in a mobile IPv6 network

The EU IST project Moby Dick worked with the vision, shared by many other researchers, that Next Generation Networks will be based on IPv6 with mobility, security and quality of service (QoS) support. These networks will offer all kinds of services, including multimedia ones with real‐time requirements, traditionally offered by circuit switched technologies. The IETF has finished the standardization of a solution for mobility in IPv6 networks: Mobile IPv6 (MIPv6). Additional protocols are being discussed to improve the performance of Mobile IPv6 to support real‐time traffic during handovers; one of these proposals is Fast Handovers for MIPv6. This paper analyzes experimentally—using real implementations for Linux O.S.—the performance of MIPv6 and Fast Handovers for MIPv6, to study if the performance is acceptable for multimedia applications. Both quantitative measurements and results of quality perceived by users of IPv6 multimedia applications are provided, showing that Fast Handovers for MIPv6 approach is good enough even for multimedia applications with strict real‐time requirements. Copyright © 2004 AEI.