Internet mobility

True IP mobility involves independence of geography, link access method, and IP network attachment point. This is a more general than simply using a cellular modem to 'dial up' your ISP from anywhere. You might take a laptop from your home (where you access the Internet via 802.11 home LAN and cable modem), walk down the street (where the laptop sustains IP access by switching to a cellular ISP), and visit a friend's place (where you use 10baseT Ethernet to plug directly into a DSL modem). Conceivably this scenario involved three different ISPs, and the laptop needs to be 'online' through the entire process.

Changing network attachment point and/or ISP causes topology and identity changes at the IP level. Traditional end user applications usually react badly to having the underlying host's identity changing mid-session. IP mobility solutions use a variety of methods to decouple a host's identity from its location on the IP network, so that identity can remain the same while attachment points change.

We are interested in work that:

• Evaluates the performance characteristics of the IETF's IP mobility solutions under plausible (rather than simplified) real-world scenarios.

• Improves current signaling and service establishment mechanisms for interactive mobile applications.

• Articulates plausible real-world applications for completely generalized 'ad-hoc' network architectures where all nodes (routers and hosts) participate in an ever-changing topology.

• Develops novel new approaches to supporting application-level mobility with minimal distruption to the existing IPv4, and possible IPv6, infrastructure.