Micro Mobility and Internet Access Performance for TCP Connections in Ad hoc Networks

In ad hoc mobile networks nodes typically communicate over wireless channels and are capable of movement. These are networks that support multihop communication and can be formed on a temporary basis. This paper evaluates a solution that allows mobile nodes to access the wired Internet and roam from base station to base station. The solution is based on the extension of Mobile IP capabilities to the ad hoc network while a micro-mobility protocol is adapted to support local migration. We evaluate the performance of this solution with regard to reliable transport layer connections. It is shown that a high throughput is possible to achieve for high mobility speeds. It is also observed that, as the number of hops between a mobile node and the base station increases, the throughput is decreased because of the characteristics of the wireless environment and the medium access layer protocol.