Integration of mobile IP and multi-protocol label switching

Multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) is a technology that combines the simplicity of IP routing with the high-speed switching of ATM. Mobile IP is a protocol that allows users to move around and yet maintain continuous IP network connectivity. We propose a scheme to integrate the mobile IP and MPLS protocols. The integration improves the scalability of the mobile IP data forwarding process by leveraging on the features of MPLS which are fast switching, small state maintenance and high scalability. In addition, we have removed the need for IP-in-IP tunneling from home agent (HA) to foreign agent (FA) under this scheme. This paper covers some issues regarding mobile IP scalability and also defines the signaling and control mechanisms required to integrate MPLS and mobile IP