Mobile internet communication protocol

An apparatus for routing information to a mobile unit in a data communications system, the mobile unit having a unique address and adapted to roam about the Internet, comprising:

• a home network having one or more access points for communicating with the mobile unit, one of the access points on the home network being a home agent;
• a wide area network coupled to the home network;
• a remote network coupled to the wide area network and having one or more access points, the mobile unit coupleable to one access point serving as a foreign agent, the foreign agent discovering a physical location of the mobile unit using an agent advertisement packet broadcasted from the access point when the mobile unit first associates with the point,
• determining whether or not the mobile unit is at the home network by having the mobile unit determine whether it receives the agent advertisement packet, and if mobile unit is not at the home network, the foreign agent registers the mobile unit with the home agent, encapsulates original data received by the home agent which is destined for the mobile unit, forwards encapsulated data to the foreign agent, and converts the encapsulated data to the original data and delivers the original data to the mobile unit via the foreign agent.