Multicast Micro-mobility Management

Mobile IP [RFC 2002] offers a neat support to mobile users, in order that mobile nodes can roam from one network to another quite easily. The concept suffers from a major drawback when the user’s movement imposes a high frequency of handoffs. Mobile IP requires the mobile node to inform its home agent of its new location every time it changes its point of attachment. The concept, which is sometimes referred to as macro-mobility is not suitable when there are frequent handoffs because of the latency that is incurred due to the exchange of registration messages between the Base Station and the Home Agent. The term micro-mobility defines an extension to the base concept, by hiding the exact location of the mobile node from the home agent. The mobile node’s exact location is kept local within the wireless domain it has visited. This document presents a new protocol designed to address micro-mobility.