QoS NSIS Signaling Layer Protocol for Mobility Support with a Cross-Layer Approach

Providing seamless QoS guarantees for multimedia services is one of the most critical requirements in the mobile Internet. However, the effects of host mobility make it difficult to provide such services. The next steps in signaling (NSIS) was proposed by the IETF as a new signaling protocol, but it fails to address some mobility issues. This paper proposes a new QoS NSIS signaling layer protocol (QoS NSLP) using a cross-layer design that supports mobility. Our approach is based on the advance discovery of a crossover node (CRN) located at the crossing point between a current and a new signaling path. The CRN then proactively reserves network resources along the new path that will be used after handoff. This proactive reservation significantly reduces the session reestablishment delay and resolves the related mobility issues in NSIS. Only a few amendments to the current NSIS protocol are needed to realize our approach. The experimental results and simulation study demonstrate that our approach considerably enhances the current NSIS in terms of QoS performance factors and network resource usage. key words: quality of service (QoS), mobile Internet, NSIS, handoff, crosslayer approach