Mobile IP in a heterogenous environment

Mobile IP is a network layer protocol that enables mobility across IP networks without having to change any configuration parameters or IP addresses. It is specified as an IETF standard and appears in two versions, MIPv4 and MIPv6. This paper describes a testbed and some experiments that were conducted to ascertain the functionality of an implementation of MIPv4. The testbed incorporated heterogenous bearers such as a satellite link and HF radio links. The link layer independence of MIP was also tested. Finally, the operation of a military application in the presence of MIP was tested with success. MIPv4 was found to be a fairly robust protocol, in the sense that successful operation was observed even in the presence of relatively low signal-to-noise ratios.