Mobile IP home agent discovery

A method for identifying a Mobile Internet Protocol (MIP) home agent (HA) in a wireless communication system, comprising:

• identifying a Packet Data Network Gateway (PDN GW) serving as an anchor point of a network-based mobility protocol used for communication in the wireless communication system;
• communicating one or more messages to the identified PDN GW containing respective requests for a MIP HA address;
• and
• receiving information relating to the MIP HA address from the PDN GW in response to the one or more messages, wherein:
• the identifying comprises identifying a serving PDN GW;
• the communicating one or more messages comprises communicating a DNS query for the MIP HA to the serving PDN GW;
• the receiving comprises receiving a DNS reply from the serving PDN GW that indicates that the MIP HA is collocated with a PDN GW disparate from the serving PDN GW;
• and
• the method further comprises de-attaching from the serving PDN GW and re-attaching to the PDN GW indicated in the DNS reply.

An apparatus that facilitates discovery of a Mobile Internet Protocol (IP) home agent, the apparatus comprising:

• means for communicating a request for a global IP address of a home agent to a Packet Data Network Gateway (PDN GW) serving as an anchor point of a network-based mobility protocol;
• means for receiving information relating to the global IP address of the home agent in response to the request, wherein the information relating to the global IP address is provided by the PDN GW when the home agent is collocated with the PDN GW, and wherein the information relating to the global IP address comprises information provided by a different device when the home agent is not collocated with the PDN GW;
• and
• means for de-attaching from the PDN GW and re-attaching to a different PDN GW associated with the different device if the information relating to the global IP address indicates that the home agent is collocated with the different device.

A non-transitory machine-readable medium having stored thereon instructions which, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform operations comprising:

• identifying a serving access router serving as a network anchor point for one or more of Proxy Mobile Internet Protocol (PMIP) or General Packet Radio Service Tunneling Protocol (GTP);
• determining whether a first Mobile Internet Protocol (MIP) home agent (HA) is collocated with the serving access router;
• if the first MIP HA is collocated with the serving access router, discovering a global address for the first MIP HA;
• and
• if the first MIP HA is not collocated with the serving access router, establishing a connection with an access router at which a second MIP HA is located and discovering a global address for the second MIP HA upon establishment of a connection with the access router.

An integrated circuit that executes computer-executable instructions for discovering a global address of a home agent, the instructions comprising:

• requesting a global address of a home agent from a Packet Data Network Gateway (PDN GW) serving as an anchor point for at least one of Proxy Mobile Internet Protocol (PMIP) or General Packet Radio Service Tunneling Protocol (GTP) by employing at least one of a Domain Name Service (DNS) query for a domain name configured based on the home agent or a connection attachment procedure;
• receiving information relating to the global address of the home agent from the PDN GW, wherein the information relating to the global address is provided by the PDN GW when the home agent is collocated with the PDN GW, and wherein the information relating to the global address comprises information provided by a different device when the home agent is not collocated with the PDN GW, the different device being collocated with the home agent;
• and
• de-attaching from the PDN GW and re-attaching to a different PDN GW associated with the different device if the information relating to the global address indicates that the home agent is collocated with the different device.