Supporting fast intra-domain handoffs and paging in wireless cellular networks

Abstract

A method and system for fast intra-domain handoffs. In accordance with the method a mobility agent performs a duration limited multicast of packets destined for a mobile node to a well-defined set of subnet agents that form a multi-cast group. The well defined set includes the neighboring subnet agents of the subnet agent currently serving the mobile node. Once the multicast group is established the mobility agent then tunnels packets destined for the mobile node to each member of the multicast group. The members of the multicast group, i.e., the current subnet agent and its neighboring agents, then buffer the packets destined for the mobile node for a limited. When the mobile node then requests an IP address on the new subnet it is moving to, i.e., a local care-of address, the corresponding subnet agent then transmits the packets destined for the mobile node to the mobile node. The limited duration multicast concept is further extended by defining a paging area and using a multicast within the paging area to reduce the frequency of intra-domain handoff updates.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.