Design, implementation, and evaluation of cellular IP

Abstract

Wireless access to Internet services will become typical, rather than the exception as it is today. Such a vision presents great demands on mobile networks. Mobile IP represents a simple and scalable global mobility solution but lacks the support for fast handoff control and paging found in cellular telephony networks. In contrast, second- and third-generation cellular systems offer seamless mobility support but are built on complex and costly connection-oriented networking infrastructure that lacks the inherent flexibility, robustness, and scalability found in IP networks. In this article we present Cellular IP, a micro-mobility protocol that provides seamless mobility support in limited geographical areas. Cellular IP, which incorporates a number of important cellular system design principles such as paging in support of passive connectivity, is built on a foundation of IP forwarding, minimal signaling, and soft-state location management. We discuss the design, implementation, and evaluation of a Cellular IP testbed developed at Columbia University over the past several years. Built on a simple, low-cost, plug-and-play systems paradigm, Cellular IP software enables the construction of arbitrary-sized access networks scaling from picocellular to metropolitan area networks. The source code for Cellular IP is freely available from the Web (comet.columbia.edu/cellularip).