Performance comparison of hinted- and advertisement-based movement detection methods for mobile IP hand-offs

In this study hinted cell switching (HCS) is introduced as a new alternativ e to the mobile internet protocol (MIP) advertisement-based movement detect ion methods, It is a method that relies on "hints" generated during subnetw ork layer hand-offs for reacting faster to MIP hand-offs. In this study the performance of HCS is compared through the use of simulations against thos e of advertisement-based movement detection methods. namely, lazy cell swit ching (LCS) and eager cell switching (ECS). The performance of the latter i s determined for a range of advertisement periods. The scenarios investigat ed involve straight line movement patterns and MIP hand-offs between foreig n agents. It is shown that HCS significantly outperforms its advertisement- based counterparts in managing faster movement detection, performing indepe ndently of agent advertisement period lengths and providing a small deviati on to its performance. Overall, it is demonstrated through simulations of I nternet audio streaming that MIP hand-offs with HCS support complete faster with minimum packet loss. Finally, it is identified that ECS performs sign ificantly faster than LCS in the investigated scenario. (C) 2001 Elsevier S cience B.V. All rights reserved.