Performance Evaluation of Mobile IPv6 Handover Extensions in an IEEE 802.11b Wireless Network Environment

In order to support mobile users, the basic Internet protocols have been extended with protocols (e.g., Mobile IPv6) for intercepting and forwarding packets to a mobile and possibly roaming node. Seamless roaming requires that users and applications do not experience loss of connectivity or any noticeable interruption in traffic. This is not only important for highly delay-sensitive traffic, but also for TCP-based traffic, as its performance is highly sensitive to packet loss and reordering. It is therefore imperative that handovers are initiated in such a way that the handover latency and packet loss is minimized. However, little is known about the performance of the proposed Mobile IPv6 approach in an actual network. In particular, it is not understood how different enhancement schemes for Mobile IPv6 influence essential performance metrics. This research paper is aimed at evaluating some of these enhancement techniques by extensive simulations to see how close we are to the ideal goal of attributing handover delay to the limitations of the physical hardware below the network layer.