Mobility management schemes for supporting multimedia services in all-IP network infrastructures

The paper argues that, in next-generation, all-IP networks, no existing mobility management protocol is suitable for every type of application, wireless environment or mobility pattern. Two composite mobility management schemes are proposed for supporting multimedia services in a seamless fashion. Both schemes i) follow a domain-based approach, isolating the wireless access from the core network, and ii) use an IP-based micro-mobility solution to handle the local mobility and support fast handoffs and paging. Two different approaches are considered for macro-mobility. The first uses SIP (session initiation protocol) in combination with IP encapsulation mechanisms to support mobility for all types of communications. The second approach performs separation of traffic; SIP signaling in combination with NAT (network address translation) is used to support mobility for real-time communications, while mobility for non-real-time communications - mainly TCP-based applications - is supported by Mobile IP. Both approaches are compared against existing mobility management protocols.