A survey of cross-layer performance enhancements for Mobile IP networks

Among the characteristics of future wireless networks is the desire to support a wide range of wireless users and a diverse set of services from many different types of networks. One of the most often referenced networking protocols for diverse wireless and mobile networking is Mobile IP. Although recent focus has been on developing a micro-mobility architecture for Mobile IP, an emerging need is to enhance the unifying performance of Mobile IP by using a cross-layer, cross-technology, approach to protocol design, in order to serve a wide variety of users, services and networks. This paper provides a survey of recently proposed performance enhancements for Mobile IP and discusses the impact on network-level performance. After a review of the Mobile IP architecture, recent research on reducing handoff latency is discussed, including the use of layer 2 hints. Then, location registration is explored, including new techniques for authentication of mobile users. Finally, an overview of performance analysis models is provided to show the most recent approaches to determining the impact of mobility on a given network.