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

In this study Hinted Cell Switching is introduced as a new alternative to the Mobile IP advertisement based movement detection methods. It is a method that relies on “hints” generated during subnetwork layer hand-offs for reacting faster to Mobile IP hand-offs. In this study the performance of Hinted Cell Switching is compared through the use of simulations against those of advertisement based movement detection methods, namely: Lazy Cell Switching and Eager Cell Switching. The performance of the latter is determined for a range of advertisement periods. The scenarios investigated involve straight line movement patterns and Mobile IP hand-offs between Foreign Agents. It is identified that Hinted Cell Switching significantly outperforms its advertisement based counterparts in managing faster movement detection; performing independantly of agent advertisement period lengths and providing a small deviation to its performance. Overall, it is demonstrated through simulations of Internet Audio streaming that Mobile IP hand-offs with Hinted Cell Switching support complete faster with minimum packet loss. Finally it is identified that Eager Cell Switching performs significanlty faster than Lazy Cell Switching in the investigated scenario.