On fundamental concept of mobility for mobile communications

The tremendous demands from the social market are pushing the booming development of mobile communications faster than ever before, leading to the emergence of many new advanced techniques. Mobile communications are changing life styles in many ways. Behind the scenario, the outstanding characteristic that makes this reality is mobility. The paper studies the basic concepts of mobility for mobile communications, with an attempt to answer the fundamental questions on mobility. A conceptual discussion is made on mobility in the contexts of both computation and communication leading to the illustration of mobile computing. The effects of mobility on both architectures and protocols of networks and communications are analysed. The concept and operations of mobility management for mobile communications are also introduced. New challenges arise in future mobile communications systems with diversity as the key feature, which lead to the classification of mobility according to different granularities.