An Experimentation with Simulating Mobile IPv6 (MIPv6) in NS-3 to handle User Mobility

Mobility management is becoming an important issue day by day due to the immense proliferation of wireless access networks globally. The IETF has standardized Mobile IPv6 (MIPv6) to handle user mobility in IP-based mobile data networks. Worldwide the researchers are putting in a lot of effort to render the mobility management as seamless as possible in order to enhance user experience. These researchers need a simulation environment to test their novel ideas before taking it to the proof-of-concept level. Although ns-2 simulator supports MIPv6, unfortunately its successor, the ns-3 simulator, does not support MIPv6 conforming to the IETF specification. This has created a huge void in the simulation based testing of the innovative ideas put forth by network researchers. To overcome this shortfall, we present an implementation approach of MIPv6 for ns-3 and subsequently carry out its performance evaluation. We provide detailed description of the implemented MIPv6 module and also preliminary results by executing the MIPv6 module in ns-3. General Terms Mobility management, IPv6, Mobile data, User experience, Performance, Design.