Mobile internetworking: performance enhancement of Mobile IP

Mobile IP, the mobile networking standard proposed by the IETF, suffers from certain basic flaws which degrade its end-to-end performance in a reliable connection-oriented environment such as TCP. This makes it less lucrative for immediate applications than ad-hoc mobile protocols, even though it offers better features. This work addresses specifically the loss in throughput and high latencies caused by the congestion control mechanisms of TCP in a mobile environment characterized by high bit error rates and frequent handoffs. This paper examines certain solutions to this problem, which involve making changes to the network and transport layer protocols at the mobile node and its base stations. The solutions were implemented in a simulated Mobile IP model, on a Linux platform. An extensive study of the efficiency of each solution and a comparative performance evaluation has been presented in this paper.