QoS for inter-WLAN IP mobility with high speed accessed network server

The Mobile IP (MIP) enables a mobile user to access the Internet anywhere with an identical IP address. However, in order to support mobility with quality of service (QoS), MIP can be inefficient for both data and time sensitive services such as voice-over-IP (VoIP). Broadband accessed network server IP mobility architecture facilitates WLAN IP mobility better and can have better QoS performance than the MIP approach. The uniqueness of this architecture is that it obviates the need for MIP for inter-WLAN IP mobility. We have previously presented the proposed architecture in great detail (Rahman, M. and Harmantzis, F., IEEE Wireless Commun. and Networking Conf., WCNC, 2004). We now provide performance analysis results, using QoS metrics and simulation experiments, comparing the existing MIP approach with our central server controlled approach. Our analysis shows that network assisted direct packet routing performs significantly better than the existing MIP in terms of delay and packet loss. We have also shown the impact of mobility management tasks on the network server managing the mobility.