Load Balancing in Tree-based IP Micro-Mobility Domains

Abstract

Nowadays the penetration of wireless access is continuously increasing. Additionally, the mobile users become more and more dependent on data. The IP-based (Internet Protocol) Internet was designed for data transmission and has become the most ubiquitous wired internetwork. According to these trends the next generation networks (and already 3G networks also include IP-based parts) are designed as a combination of these two types of networks (mobile and IP-based). The Mobile IP protocol handles mobility in the IP layer globally, but it is not well-adopted to local coverage areas. Within such access networks the micro-mobility proposals enhance the performance of Mobile IP. In this paper we propose a solution for improving the performance of tree-based micro-mobility protocols by rearranging their capacity using additional links. Based on analytical considerations we obtain a formula to determine the optimal link size in particular cases. The method is also examined with our simulation testbed, the results show improvement in the performance of the domain.