Flexible mobile IP foreign agent architecture for enabling converged services

A network element configured to process Mobile IP traffic and wired traffic, comprising:

• a set of one or more converged services domains to support processing of Mobile IP traffic and wired traffic, each converged services domain including,
• a foreign agent context to provide binding for interfaces of the network element where foreign agent functionality is supported, and to provide a Mobile IP forwarding information base,
• a care-of address (CoA) context to provide reachability to a plurality of remote network elements, and
• a VPN context to support overlapping addresses of the remote network elements, the VPN context including forwarding information corresponding to the overlapping addresses.

A non-transitory machine-readable medium that provides instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause said processor to perform operations for forwarding a packet received at a network element, comprising:

• receiving the packet over a circuit bound with a converged services domain of the network element, wherein the converged services domain enables forwarding of wired and wireless packet traffic to a plurality of destination network elements;
• and
• upon determining that the circuit is capable of carrying Mobile Internet Protocol (IP) packets,
• processing the packet according to an entry in a Mobile IP forwarding information base upon determining that the packet has a corresponding entry in the Mobile IP forwarding information base, and
• processing the packet according to a different entry in an IP forwarding information base upon determining that the packet does not have an entry in the Mobile IP forwarding information base.