Mobility management in all-IP mobile network.

With convergence of the Internet and mobile telecommunications, mobile networks are taking more and more IP-based protocols onboard. Mobile networks are expected to evolve and become IP-based packet data networks with various fuctionalities supported by IP-based protocols. This thesis investigates IP protocols for mobility management an all-IP mobile network. The design principles of mobility management in packet data network are first explored by studying GPRS. It is realised that GPRS is only an emulated IP network and lacks of the flexibility of IP networks. Packet scheduling techniques for enhancing mobility management performance and its implementation in GPRS are also studied. Evolution of GPRS to an all-IP based network, in which IP protocols can be used for mobility management, is subsequently proposed. Mobility management protocols in IP networks can be segregated into inter-domain (or macro) mobility, intra-domain (or micro) mobility and mobile ad hoc networking. Mobile IP is a proposal by the IETF as a solution to support mobility of IP terminal. In addition, SIP has been extended by research community to support terminal mobility. Both Mobile IP and extended SIP are compared for their ability to support mobility. It is found that Mobile IP is more suitable for supporting terminal mobility. However, Mobile IP is not sufficient for supporting intra-domain and high-speed mobility. An optimised solution therefore consists of Mobile IP and a specialised intra-domain mobility scheme. Having identified the characteristics and design principles of various existing inti-a-domain mobility protocols, a novel protocol known as Mobility-Aware Routing Protocol, MARP, is proposed. It is compared to some existing protocols and is proven to be superior in term of better handoff support, flexibility in packet routing and scalability. Mobile ad hoc networks are expected to be integral part of all-IP mobile network. Interworking of ad hoc and infrastructure-backed mobile networks enables extension of wireless networks coverage and provision of Internet access to mobile node with relaying. Key issues related to such a hybrid networking topology, in the context of ad hoc IP routing protocol and mobility management protocol, are identified. Mechanisms that allow interworking of mobility protocols and ad hoc routing protocols are designed. Interworking of both protocols significantly increases capability of ad hoc mobile nodes to interact with fixed network elements, but is at the cost of high control overhead. Effective techniques for reducing control overhead in the hybrid network is subsequently proposed.