A comparative analysis of MIFAv6, HAWAII and MIP

The research in the field of wireless communication networks focuses nowadays on the development of the 4th generation (4G) networks. The key features of this new generation is that the 4G capabilities should be integrated with all existing mobile technologies through a common IP core. These networks are termed, therefore, as ldquoAll-IPrdquo networks and are expected to offer any type of service-anytime, anywhere and anyhow under dynamic network conditions. However, many challenges should be faced when developing such networks. One of the main challenges is how to manage the mobility between the cells connecting by means of an IP core in a way that satisfies the real-time requirements. In order to face this challenge, several approaches have been proposed. These solutions still suffer, however, from many drawbacks making them inadequate for the future ldquoAll-IPrdquo networks. Mobile IP fast authentication protocol (MIFAv6) is a mobility framework for IPv6 and developed to avoid the problems of previous solutions and to support the requirements of real-time applications. This paper evaluates this protocol compared to handoff-aware wireless access Internet infrastructure (HAWAII) and mobile IP (MIP). The evaluation is performed by means of simulations using the network simulator 2 (ns2) and comprises the studying of the handoff latency and the number of dropped packets on up- and downlink. The simulation results have shown that MIFAv6 outperforms HAWAII and MIP under all conditions. On uplink, the average number of the dropped packets experienced by MIFAv6 is about 90% less than that dropped by MIP and HAWAII. On downlink, MIFAv6 drops about 46% and 62% lower than that dropped by HAWAII and MIP respectively. MIFAv6 achieves fast and smooth handoffs even in high loaded networks.