An Analysis of Mobile IPv6 Signaling Load in Next Generation Mobile Networks

To date, mobile communication has been dominated by voice services. This is likely to be valid also for the foreseeable future, but at the same time a multitude of data services are also emerging. This trend in mobile communication has fueled the introduction of packet-switched mobile networks, thus introducing the IP suite into the field of mobile communications. This technological shift can be already observed in today's 2.5 and 3G networks. In the first phases, however, mobile devices have an IP point of attachment which seldom changes throughout the lifetime of a communication session. Mobility management is handled below this point of attachment by means of access-specific mechanisms. A unified mobility management mechanism at the IP layer may enable streamlined network architectures, for example as complementary access technologies emerge in next generation mobile networks. Mobile IPv6 represents a key candidate mechanism to fulfill this vision of unified IP-based mobile communication networks. This paper analyses and quantifies the signaling overheads in a mobile communication network that uses Mobile IPv6 for mobility management.