A Novel Micro Mobility Solution Based on Media Independent Handover and SIP

Media Independent Handover (MIH) is a technique proposed by the emerging IEEE 802.21 standard that provides solutions for seamless handover across heterogeneous networks. The IEEE standard provides link layer intelligence information to upper layer to optimize handover between networks of the same type as well as handover between different network types. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is becoming the leading protocol for multimedia call control in IP networks and is expected to be widely deployed in the near future. The existing SIP infrastructures and signalling could be optimized to provide a good solution for mobility support. In this paper we introduce the concept of MIH and propose a solution for vertical handover of a multimedia session based on SIP with the triggers being provided by MIH for efficient terminal mobility management in a SIP environment.