IP Address Passing for VANETs

In vehicular Ad-hoc networks (VANETs), vehicles can gain short connections to the Internet by using wireless access points (AP). A significant part of the connection time is the time required for acquiring an IP address via dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP). Depending on a vehicle's speed and the AP coverage area, DHCP can consume up to 100 percent of a vehicle's available connection time. We propose the IP Passing Protocol to reduce the overhead of obtaining an IP address to under one-tenth of a second. This is done without modifying either DHCP or AP software. We explore scalable implementations and describe the dynamics of the IP Passing Protocol. We also show our protocol will significantly improve efficiency, reduce latency, and increase vehicle connectivity.