A Modified Design for HAWAll Micromobility Protocol to Support Quality of Service

Abstract

The number of mobile users and the wireless access to the Internet are both growing rapidly. In addition, multimedia applications are becoming the dominant applications in next generation networks. Mobile IP (MIP) is the current standard for mobility support in such networks. To overcome MIP limitations, many micromobility protocols have been developed. However, very little work has been done regarding QoS to support the multimedia applications in these protocols.

In this work, a solution is proposed for QoS support in HAWAll micromobility protocol using differentiated services (Differv). Two types of changes have been made in HAWAII network: architectural changes and protocol changes. Architectural changes include adding QoS broker to sore users' profiles needed by Dif~Serv. They also include modifying some of the functionalities of the HAWAII etwork nodes. Protocol changes, on the other hand, are done by adding two new control messages and by modifying HAWAll powerup and handoff operations. These changes enable network nodes exchange QoS data at the same time the original mobility operations are performed. A simulation model has been developed to test the performance of the proposed solution. The model is based on an updated version of NS2 CIMS extension. The simulation results show that the proposed solution has enhanced the QoS support in HAWAll network. The network was able to differentiate between different users' classes giving each user a satisfactory service level according to his privilege. It is also shown that the modifications made are integrated seamlessly with the original operations. The results analysis at the end also show that the signaling overhead that was added due to modifications is very small and is paid off when compared with the enhancements made.