Performance analysis of hierarchical mobile IPv6 in IP-based cellular networks

Next-generation wireless/mobile networks will be IP-based cellular networks integrating Internet with the existing cellular networks. Recently, hierarchical mobile IPv6 (HMIPv6) was proposed by the Internet engineering task force (IETF) for efficient mobility management. HMIPv6 reduces the amount of signaling and improves the performance of MIPv6 in terms of handover latency. Although HMIPv6 is an efficient scheme, the performance of wireless networks is highly dependent on various system parameters such as user mobility model, packet arrival pattern, etc. Therefore, it is essential to analyze the network performance when HMIPv6 is deployed in IP-based cellular networks. In this paper, we propose an analytic model for the performance analysis of HMIPv6 in IP-based cellular networks, which is based on the random walk mobility model. Based on this analytic model, we formulate location update cost and packet delivery cost. Then, we analyze the impact of cell residence time on the location update cost and the impact of user population on the packet delivery cost. Also, we investigate the variation in the total cost as the relative session size and the MAP domain size are changed. As a result, we present various analytical results in different environments.