Handoff Management Schemes and Performance Analysis for IP/MPLS-Based Cellular Networks

One of the major challenges for the wireless networks is related to efficient mobility management issue. In this paper, we propose a new micro-mobility management scheme, called micro mobile MPLS, that supports both mobility and quality-of-service (QoS) management in cellular networks. Our proposal includes two protocol variants. In the first variant, called FC-micro mobile MPLS, the forwarding chain (FC) concept is provided to track efficiently the host mobility within a domain. This concept fits mobile nodes (MNs) with high mobility rate. The second protocol variant, called master forwarding chain (MFC)-micro mobile MPLS, aims to reduce the total signaling cost by controlling the number of registration updates with the root of the domain. In order to assess the efficiency of our proposals, all underlying protocols are compared through simulations using both two-dimensional (2-D) and one-dimensional (1-D) mobility models. Simulation results show that our proposed mechanisms can significantly reduce the registration updates cost and provide low handoff latency and packet loss rate under various scenarios