Routing-Aware Handover for IP Multicasting based on Forwarding Router Discovery

SUMMARY To support multicast over Mobile IP networks, the IETF proposed two schemes, namely bi-directional tunneling (MIP-BT) and remote subscription (MIP-RS). MIP-BT provides mobility by establishing bi-directional tunnel from home agent to mobile node's care-of address. Although it does not require multicast tree reconstruction, it suffers from redundant routing that causes packet delivery delay and network bandwidth con- sumption. On the other hand, MIP-RS provides mobility by reconstructing multicast tree when mobile node enters a foreign network. Although MIP-RS provides shortest multicast routing path, it requires the reconstruction of entire multicast tree in case of source mobility and causes service disruption and out-of-synch problem during the process of handover. To cope with these prob- lems, this paper introduces a routing-aware handover scheme for IP multicasting in cases of receiver mobility and source mobility respectively. Our proposed scheme provides the shortest multi- cast routing path without out-of-synch problem and also mini- mizes the bandwidth consumption in case of receiver mobility. And the proposed scheme that enjoys the advantages of MIP- RS and provides seamless handover with the help of Forwarding Router, which assists handover by swapping network addresses and conducting packet forwarding in case of source mobility. We examine the deployment issues of the proposed scheme over the Internet and evaluate the proposed schemes from the viewpoint of routing distance and network bandwidth consumption through simulation experiments with various parameters, and then clarify