Regional Registration-Based Mobile Multicast Service Management in Mobile IP Networks

We propose and analyze a regional registration based mobile multicast service management scheme which we call URRMoM for efficiently supporting mobile multicast in Mobile IP networks. URRMoM extends the design concept of Remote Subscription (RS) by using mobile multicast agents (MMAs), each covering a number of MHs in its service area through tunneling multicast packets received from the multicast source to them. URRMoM adopts a user-central design allowing each mobile host to determine its optimal MMA service area dynamically depending on its service and mobility characteristics. We develop an analytical model to describe the behavior of a MH operating under URRMoM and derive the optimal service area of the MMA based on the MH’s service and mobility characteristics to minimize the total network traffic generated due to multicast packet delivery and multicast tree maintenance. We present analytical results validated by simulation to demonstrate the benefit of our proposed regional registration based mobile multicast service management scheme over existing schemes including RS and RBMoM.