The mobile ATM LAN emulation protocol

We propose the mobile ATM LAN emulation protocol (MLE) which is an extension of the ATM Forum LAN emulation (LE) protocol. MLE provides a location independent access and allows user to move around within wired or wireless ATM LAN without interruption to the LE services. The proposed protocol takes advantage of the fact that VCCs used for LAN emulation are established and relinquished on demand. The MLE protocol terminates all the connections from the host at the beginning of a handoff and re-establishes them either at the end of the handoff or on demand. Thus, to the ATM LAN emulation network, a handoff appears identical to the termination of the LE connections due to the lack of traffic. The MLE protocol requires minimal extensions to the ATM LAN emulation protocol.