Mobile IP applicability:when do we really need it?

Mobile IP is currently the most promising solution for the mobility management of the Internet. The objective of this paper is to reconsider Mobile IP based mobility management technology, with the emphasis on the applicability analysis of Mobile IP standard. Mobile IP and its extensions are briefly introduced. A thorough analysis on the applicability of Mobile IP based mobility management strategy is provided, according to which two main limitations of Mobile IP are distinguished. First, it is recognized that Mobile IP lacks flexibility with respect to the transparent and mandatory mobility support to various applications. A second problem occurs when multiple interfaces are available for one user device to access heterogeneous networks. Flow level traffic control is needed in addition to device level mobility schemes.