Mobility and the Internet
R.R. Parry · IEEE Potentials · 1998
The Internet Protocol (IP) was never intended for mobility. Nevertheless, we need to provide this functionality without changing the underlying protocol. If we could start over again, hindsight would provide a wealth of wisdom in implementing a mobility protocol. However, given the installed base, the overriding design requirement must be to remain compatible with the standard IP. Mobile-IP must be able to support mobility for both wired and wireless local area networks (LANs). The Mobile-IP must be able to function in the harsh, wireless world where high error rates are the norm and bandwidth is limited. The paper considers how the design must accommodate a mobile host moving between wireless LANs, as well as between a wire and wireless LAN. It discusses the design requirements, multicasting and tunneling.