Mobile IP for Wireless Devices

An Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard communications protocol that is designed to allow mobile device users to move from one network to another while maintaining their permanent IP address. Mobile IP is an enhancement of the Internet Protocol (IP) that adds mechanisms for forwarding Internet traffic to mobile devices (known as mobile nodes) when they are connecting through other than  … 

• Proposed as a Standard in November 1996
• Solution for Internet
• Scalable, robust, secure, maintain communication
• Use their permanent IP address
• Routing protocol
• Route packets to nodes that could potentially change location very rapidly

• Layer 4-7, outside Mobile IP, but will be of major interest (TCP, for example)

Mobile IP is an open standard, defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) RFC 2002, that allows users to keep the same IP address, stay connected, and maintain ongoing applications while roaming between IP networks. Mobile IP is scalable for the Internet because it is based on IP—any media that can support IP can support Mobile IP.

The number of wireless devices for voice or data is projected to surpass the number of fixed devices. Mobile data communication will likely emerge as the technology supporting most communication including voice and video. Mobile data communication will be pervasive in cellular systems such as 3G and in wireless LAN such as 802.11, and will extend into satellite communication. Though mobility may be enabled by link-layer technologies, data crossing networks or different link layers is still a problem. The solution to this problem is a standards-based protocol, mobile ip.