Comparison of IP micromobility protocols

We present a performance comparison of a number of key micromobility protocols that have been discussed in the IETF Mobile IP Working Group over the past several years. IP micromobility protocols complement Mobile IP by offering fast and seamless handoff control in limited geographical areas, and IP paging in support of scalability and power conservation. We show that despite the apparent differences between IP micromobility protocols, the operational principles that govern them are largely similar. We use this observation to establish a generic micromobility model to better understand design and performance trade offs. A number of key design choices are identified within the context of the generic model related to handoff quality and route control messaging. We present simulation results for Cellular IP, Hawaii, and Hierarchical Mobile IP, and evaluate the handoff performance of these protocols. Simulation results presented in this article are based on the Columbia IP Micromobility Software (CIMS), which is freely available from the Web (comet.columbia. edu/micromobility) for experimentation.