Mobile Intelligent Agent Technologies to Support Intelligent Handover Strategy

Chen-Han Lin and Jen-Shun Yang Ko-Ching Wu

Computer and Communications Research Department of Computer Science and Information
Laboratories, Industrial Technology Research Engineering, National Chiao Tung University,
Institute, Hsinchu, Taiwan, R.O.C. Hsinchu, Taiwan, R.O.C.
Email: {chenhlin, jsyang}@itri.org.tw Email: [email protected]

Abstract adapter and solved in the prior art of Intelligent Channel

We investigate the possible application of Mobile Scan mechanism [1]. The L2 access authentication, referred
Intelligent Agent for early authentication prior to the to as link layer (IEEE 802.1X [25]) authentication, occurs
handove. Seamless handover is required in VoIP mobility when the MN attempts authentication with a new AP. It may
services in order to limit the period of the service disruption create a trust relation between the client and L2 access
experienced by a MN when moving between different IP devices to ensure the cryptographic-protected WLAN access.
subnets. Our seamless handover method involves early The IP layer binding delay is result from the allocation
deployment of multiple copies of the Mobile Intelligent of dynamic IP address via DHCP followed by the routing
Agents to predicative locations where the MS is about to path update to the new AP. Upon authentication success, a
move for early authentication. The implementation aspect of new IP address is assigned to the MN before the upper-
seamless handover in Mobile Agent based VoIP services is layered handover could proceed. For the inter-AP handoff,
provided. In the performance analyses, a comparison in the Inter-Access Point Protocol (IAPP) is proposed in IEEE
handover delay is made between the standard Mobile IP 802.11f [2]. The L2 re-authentication delay could be
mobility and our proposed method. reduced during inter-AP roaming.
To reduce the connectivity delay and packet loss, G.
Keywords: VoIP mobility, corner effect, seamless handover, Tsirtsis et al. proposed a fast handover scheme based on the
VPN, Mobile Agent, SIP, Mobile IP Mobile IPv6 mechanisms [8]. A MN is assigned a new IP
address even before it connects to its new AP. The process
I. Introduction includes sending messages indicating handover to the MN,
allowing it to form a new IP address, and negotiating the
One of the most important factors in the success of APs with this new IP address. A forwarding path from the
VoIP mobility services seems to be the seamless handover previous AP to new AP is setup for the packets destined for
that has made it possible to minimize the delays during the MN’s previous IP address. The MN sends a “Fast” Mobile
handover. The delays in the respect are the authentication IPv6 Binding Update message to the previous AP only after
and dynamic IP address allocation delays, which cause the receiving the forwarding indication.
packet loss. A Mobile Node (MN) sends multiple copies of There still remain many challenges in reducing the
the Mobile Agent (MA) to potential MN movement DHCP delay in proposed mechanisms such as SIP mobility
locations for pre-authentication. To eliminate the packet loss [3] and Mobile IP [4], and application layer authentication
during handover, we employ the multi-homing concept that and registration delay in SIP mobility [3]. We take
is the ability for a single endpoint to support multiple IP advantage of VPN technology, where the MN is identified
addresses. We rely on Virtual Private Network (VPN) by its static private IP address regardless of its current point
connectivity method to reduce the delay of dynamic IP of attachment to the subnets, and allow the MN to use the
address allocation. Adding the improvements together will same IP address during handover (in contrast to CoA in
make the handovers in VoIP mobility services “seamless”. Mobile IP). When the mobile host hands off to any other AP,
The period from when the MN last receives data since the new AP receives session information in advance,
traffic via its old IP subnet to when it receives data from its further message exchanges are not needed. The relocated
new IP subnet is often referred to as the handover delay. MN can obtain all information from the new AP and it is not
Accordingly, the delay can be divided into four sub-delays, necessary to send an “Access Request” request to the AAA
i.e. Layer 1/Layer 2 (L1/L2) radio link switching delay, L2 server. Hence, the delay of re-authentication for the MN is
access re-authentication delay, IP layer binding delay and reduced. On the Mobile IPv6 systems, the packets are
application layer authentication and registration delay. The forward from the old AP to the new AP, which could results
sub-delays is described as follows. in the reception delay and packet loss. Generally, since the
Between the time a MN detaches from old link and AAA server is often located in a remote domain for more
attaches to new link, it's basically unreachable. The delay scalable service, the delay in the path from the AP to AAA
incurred to this exchange is referred to as the L1/L2 radio server is a critical factor in the overall handover delay.
link switching delay. The delay is strictly hardware delay, The rest of paper is organized as follows. Section 2
which could be affected by the performance of network gives the background on current VoIP mobility methods
including MIP, SIP as well as the overview of major MA Pervious AR: PAR) and moves into the range of another
systems. Section 3 presents our solutions for solving the IP (called new AR: NAR). When it moves away from its PAR,
address allocation and authentication delays. Further details the signal strength from the PAR will decrease. The MN
the appropriateness of MAs in wireless handover services. must establish link connectivity with its NAR immediately
Section 4 discusses the performance of our proposed system. before severe degradation of its PAR signal strength. Prior
Section 5 concludes this paper. to attachment, it must somehow detect whether it has moved
into the new access area. Once moved, it needs to configure
II. Related Works new CoA. To form a new CoA, the MN requests the PAR to
supply IP address, link-layer address as well as network
In this section, we describe the previous works related prefix of the NAR’s interface to which it is handing over to.
to mobility supporting for VoIP services. First, we present Once CoA is configured, it must inform the HA and the CN
two major technologies, Mobile IP and SIP, for supporting of its new location by the means of Binding Update message.
mobility services in mobile environment. Second, detail the Before these tasks to be taken, the CN continues to transmit
fast handover for Mobile IPv6. Third, present the packets with the old CoA to PAR. From now on, if the MN
multihoming and street corner effects. Last, briefly describe is out of the range and no longer receives packets from its
the overview of MIA technology. PAR, the packet loss occurs. For delay non-sensitive
connection, a retransmission can be used to compensate for
A. Mobile IP packet loss. But for delay sensitive connections, the
When a MN is away from its home, a Care-of Address retransmission delay may be intolerable. Thus, the fast
(CoA) is temporarily assigned to the visiting MN, either by handover for Mobile IPv6 has been proposed to solve the
the Foreign Agent (FA), or by other means such as DHCP. packet lose problem and to achieve the goal of smooth
After the allocation of new CoA, the MN then sends a handover. The following section examines the Mobile IPv6
Binding Update message to inform MIP agents to change handover procedure in detail.
the binding list of the MN to the new CoA. At the same time, When an MN is about to move to another AR, it must
HA updates the corresponding Binding Cache with new send the Routers Solicitation for Proxy (RtSolPr) message
CoA in order to correctly forward packets destined to the to its PAR. In the RtSolPr message (Router Solicitation for
MN. Proxy), the MN must indicate the link layer address or the
A well-known problem in Mobile IP is triangular identifier of the attachment point to which it wants to move.
routing and call disruption. The triangular routing can be The PAR will reply with a Proxy Router Advertisement
solved by the Route optimization mechanisms, where the message that contains a new CoA that the MN should use
binding updates are sent to inform the Corresponding Node and the NAR prefix that should be used to form a new CoA.
(CN) about the actual location of the MN. The Call After that, the MN will send a Fast Binding Update (FBU)
disruption caused by the CoA assignment and binding to its PAR to indicate its movement and that it wants its
update completion delay could be solved by fast handover packets be forwarded to the NAR and further to him. At the
mechanisms [8]. same time, the PAR sends an ICMPv6 related HI message
(Handover Initiate) to the NAR by indicating the old and the
B. SIP mobility new CoA of the MN. If the NAR receives HI message (sent
Wedlund and Schulzrinne proposed mobility support by PAR) without a new CoA, it will allocates a new CoA
in the application layer protocol SIP where applicable, in and sends it to the PAR by the means of Handover
order to support real-time communication in a more efficient Acknowledgement (HAck) message. Otherwise, the NAR
way [5]. If the mobile node moves during an active session, receives HI message with a new CoA, and it will determines
first it obtains a new IP address from the DHCP server, and if that new CoA is valid (or legal) and sends a validation
then sends a new session invitation to the corresponding indication in the HAck message. If the HAck message
node (CN). With this new invitation, it tells its new IP indicates that the new CoA is valid, the PAR will prepare to
address so as to forward packets properly. As opposed to an forward the packets to the MN with its new CoA. In the
MN using MIP (when the MN detect movements, it can contrary case, if the HAck message indicates that the new
obtain CoA from a FA), a MN using SIP-mobility always CoA is invalid, the HAck has contained a valid new CoA
needs to acquire an IP address via DHCP, which can be a allocated by NAR. On the reception of HAck message, the
major part of the overall handover delay. PAR must send Fast Binding Acknowledgement (FBack) to
the MN by locally or by way of the NAR (by using the new
C. Fast handover for Mobile IPv6 CoA or by the address encapsulation in the NAR). On the
This section is to further discuss the issues in FBU reception and the FBack sending, the PAR can start to
handover we face. Let us assume that the MN migrates from forward the intended packets for the MN to the NAR with
the subnet of one AR to another. What problem are we the MN’s old CoA or with the MN’s new CoA depending
going to face? What solution is currently available? on the HAck message value. The NAR will cache these
Initially an MN is attached to an AR (called old AR or packets waiting for the MN handover to the NAR. When the
MN establishes link connectivity with the NAR, it must This mainly concerns fast moving MS’s as used in cars. The
send a Fast Neighbor Advertisement (FNA) to initiate the effect can be mitigated by putting the target BS into the
flow of packets that may be waiting for it, or if it has not active list of serving base stations. To avoid an increased
received confirmation in FBack message to use the new signalling traffic between the mobile and the active base
CoA. Once it is acceptable to use new CoA corresponding stations, the decision errors have to be kept to a minimum.
to the FNA message, NAR must enable the host route entry This can be partially achieved having a thorough knowledge
so that any unbuffered packet could be delivered. Finally, of the radio wave behaviour during such power-drops. Thus,
the MN must send Binding Update (BU) message to the HA the objective of the project was to investigate the depth,
and the CN through the NAR in order to register its new duration and shape of a power-drop during a street corner
CoA. After the CN successfully process the BU, which turn-round in dependency of the assigned cell (Macro,
involves the Return Routability procedure [], the MN can Micro, Pico, etc.), the surrounding terrain and the MS speed.
receive packets at new CoA. Handover completes. Mobile Intelligent Agent technique is employed to
Handover affects the network in various ways but it reduce the application handover delay and packet loss ratio.
introduces two key problems: handover delay and packet The Mobile Intelligent Agent is traveled along the electric
loss. The above handover scheme is actually similar to the field to the neighboring subnets. The dispatch of Mobile
present GSM/GPRS handover. The common goals are to Agents must occur enough in advance so that it is possible
minimize the delay and packet loss at handover. To reduce for the Mobile Agents to authenticate with the new access
handover delay, the MN registers with NAR through the router. First, the MN measures the power and discards all
PAR before leaving the old access area. To eliminate packet unknown patterns to exclude complete failures in the
loss, the PAR uses the tunnel established between PAR and decision making. Second, known pattern are followed to
NAR to forward undelivered packets to NAR. The approach distinguish between a temporarily shadowed mobile and a
is considered essential for the delay-sensitive connections. real power drop occurrence. Once the power drop pattern
falls below a chosen threshold, the handover is initiated. On
D. Link Layer Support of Multi-homing the one hand, the threshold is chosen to be higher than the
Because Soft handover provides same data receiving dynamic thresholds for the existing soft-handover hysteresis
from multiple APs, it allows MN’s session to progress algorithms. This yields the required gain in handover
without interruption when a MN moves from one subnet to processing time. And on the other hand, the threshold has to
another. These can be done, if and only if (1.) MN is able to be sufficiently low to minimize falsely initiated handover.
communicate simultaneously with multiple APs in the same The actual value of the threshold, however, is quite crucial
time. (2.) The network can duplicate and correctly merge the in the performance of the system and will vary from location
IP flows from the CN to the MN through different APs. If to location.
the two conditions are verified, it is possible to eliminate
packet loss and reduces end-to-end transmission delays, F. The Mobile (Intelligent) Agent Technology
which provides a clear advantage to traffic requiring real In recent years the mobile intelligent agent technology
time transmission. has been the focus of much speculation. The MA is software
Fast handover bi-casting, enables data duplication component include data and executable code, which can be
through old and new APs, but MN cannot receive more than transferred from network element to another while carrying
one IP data flow at the same time. It enables data reception on its status of execution. The MA is a quite alluring
from multiples APs simultaneously at IP layer, which allows technology which can walk everywhere in Internet to search
MN’s session to progress without interruption when it for application relative information [14]. It can find us a
moves from one AP to another. It requires MN to have two great deal of goods and services, and interact with other MA
WLAN radio interfaces [9]. within the same network or remain bound to a particular
The multi-homing feature enables the MN to support host. Also, as shown in [12], in certain cases, the MA
seamless handover by simultaneous binding of two different technology can diminish network traffic compared to
addresses while staying the overlapping region. The packets traditional client-server model and maintain load balancing,
are multicast to MN and MIP agents without need to tunnel thus improve network performance especially in mobile
packets to the NAR from the PAR as current present in environment. So we take advantage of MA technology to
Mobile IPv6 networks. The packet loss is reduced during the assist the SIM-based pre-authentication. The MA
handover. technology not only reduces control packets to process the
SIM-based authentication but also pre-create a VPN tunnel
E. Street Corner Effect at the new location of attachment for secured packet
Turning around a corner of a street can cause a transmissions.
sudden power-drop of 10-30 dB. This effect is called “Street The future mobile communications are becoming
Corner Effect”. If a mobile station (MS) is assigned to a personalization and customization. Thus we expect that the
certain base station (BS), then the power-drop can cause a future mobile services can enable the nomadic users using
temporal loss of frames during the handover to the new BS. multi-homed device to access any tier of heterogeneous
wireless networks (e.g., WLAN and 3G cellular network) registration delay is harder to reduce than the DHCP delay
anytime and anywhere with the information that agrees with and cannot be ignored due to security consideration.
the manners recorded in each user’s profiles. However, this L2TP
VPN
requires a very sophisticated and appropriate infrastructure Foreign tunnel
Intranet 1 Intranet
to carry out personalization such as those foreseen in the Internet
IPSec Application Server
Virtual Home Environment (VHE) [10] and the Personal tunnel (CN)

Service Environment (PSE) [11]. Such a mobile Multi-homing

environment should enable a seamless integration of
complex and distributed heterogeneous wireless and fixed LAC 1 Mobile Agent
sends
networks. One of the seamless integration is obviously the Authentication
Request
combination of WLAN and 3G architectures, which is MN
Mobile Agent
LNS AS responses
desirable in order to deliver ultimately personalized end-to- Data
Authentication
grant
end mobile services. This architecture would be met by MA stream

technology maturely. So recently, there was a work on the L2TP Authentication

IPSec
MA-based advanced service architecture for wireless tunnel LAC 2
VPN Server (AS)
tunnel
Internet telephony [15]. Foreign
We have emphasized the advantages of a MA-based Intranet 2
technology for brokerage of personalized movable devices.
In this work, the term MA is referred to any entity that Fig. 1 Seamless Handover Architecture for Mobile VPN
process a particular task on behalf of one of the players
(MNs) mentioned above. In order to conceive and build To overcome these drawbacks, we propose the
agent system platforms (i.e. agent development seamless handover architecture for the mobile VPN users
environments), the players with capabilities are required to (Fig. 1). Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) VPN tunnels
create and execute agents therein. Because MIAs are are constructed between the L2TP Network Server (LNS)
deemed so popular, there has been an explosion of platforms and all L2TP Access Concentrators (LACs). Service and
being created for developing agent and multi-agent systems. authentication requests and data packets are protected under
Following this development, several standardization efforts IPSec tunnels while transmitted between the MN and LNS.
are underway, namely by FIPA [16] and OMG [17]. Some They are further encapsulated into L2TP VPN tunnels
well-known MA systems [13] are: MOLE, Telescript, during transmission between the LNS and LAC. The LNS
Aglets Workbench, ffMAIN, and D’Agents. Despite the fact function as a service proxy to forward the service requests
that these system were built to serve the same purpose, they from the MN to the application server. To minimize the
have many differences in terms of terminology, concepts, DHCP delay, IP binding update delay, and application layer
and architecture. Some of these systems were developed in authentication delay, we employ the following three
academic environments and others were developed by the techniques.
industry. • VPN with private static IP address
• Multi-homing
III. Mobile (Intelligent) Agents to support seamless VoIP • Mobile Agent
services over Mobile VPN It is desirable for the MN to be able to keep the same
IP address while roaming. L2TP VPN can be implemented
The MA-based pre-authentication system includes the as an Intranet and have the static private IP addresses
seamless handover architecture for mobile VPN and the assigned to its private MNs regardless of their location. The
seamless handover mechanism, which employs the MA MN can remain connected to its home network over the
technologies to facilitate early authentication and L2TP VPN tunnels while roaming among different foreign
registration of MN over a new AP. The delay can be Intranets (i.e., IP subnets). For the purpose, we can ignore
minimized if the MAs are dispatched to the new IP subnet the delay of IP address renewal (i.e., CoA delay in Mobile
as soon as possible. To do so, we utilize link layer (layer 2 IP and DHCP delay in SIP).
or L2) triggering events to improve handover. IEEE 802.21 The fast handover for Mobile IPv6 [8] tries to
working group proposed the L2 triggering [23]. The MAs minimize the period of service disruption by the packet
will be dispatched (or forked), whenever there is such tunneling mechanisms while performing network layer
triggering event in prior to an occurrence of the actual handover. In contrast to the fast handover for Mobile IPv6,
handover. the multi-homing concept is used to minimize the disruption
Both IP layer binding delay and application layer time and packet loss ratio. Traffic for the MN bi-casts or
authentication and registration delay are major parts of the multicasts to its current location and to one or more
overall handover delay. The delay of IP address renewal (> locations where the MN is expected to move to shortly. The
2s) has significant effect on the overall handover ambiguity of the data traffic timing for the MN to its new
performance. The application layer authentication and point of attachment following the fast handover can be
avoided, which allows decoupling of the L2/L3 handoffs. procedures.
Although bi-casting or multi-casting requires more network
bandwidth, it eliminates the service disruption period • Phase 2 – Beginning of the handover
currently present during handoffs in Mobile IPv6 networks When the radio signal strength of the current AP starts
due to end-to-end transmission delay caused by the triangle weakening, the MN tries to look for a better AP to re-
routing. associate with, triggering a handover procedure. If the radio-
Note that many WLAN providers will block all signal strength in the current Foreign Intranet is lower than a
outbound traffic from the MNs until the authentication and certain threshold, it finds out which neighboring Foreign
authorization are completed. They adopt the EAP-SIM Intranets with different ESSID have the radio signal strength
based authentication [24] mechanism to take advantage of higher than the threshold and dispatches MAs to the
high security and needless user’s intervention. The MA, corresponding LACs of the Foreign Intranets. Here, the
carrying the user’s profile and SIM info, executes the EAP- LACs is been carefully chosen in accordance with if some
SIM based authentication over the L2TP VPN tunnels prior strategies, for example the choice can be done by the
to the L2 handover. mobility predictions, but which are beyond the discussion of
In Fig. 2, we illustrate the handover cycle, defined as a this paper. It should be noted that the number of the LACs
sequence of phases in a single handover procedure starting been dispatched MA have to inform the LNS, because the
with the handover request from the MN, and ending with LNS will multicast the data packets to the LACs, and then
old handover path is completely removed. the packets will be further forwarded toward the radio links
during the period when the MN ready to handover into one
• Phase 1 – Prior to the handover of the LACs. The multicast among possible LACs could
Initially an MN is attached to one LAC and moves reduce the disruption time and also the packet loss. After
into the range of another. In order to restrict the access to arrived at each LAC, the MA authenticate with AS on
the VPN and the application server (i.e., CN), the MN behalf of the MN while waiting for it to arrive, whereof the
initiates the EAP-SIM based authentication to the LAC forward the authentication information to the LNS via
Authentication Server (AS) prior to the registration of an the tunnels. Since duplicated authentication information are
application, whereof the EAP-SIM based authentication is forwarded to the LNS, the LNS merges these information
slightly revised from original version due to adopt to the and forwards them to AS. Once authenticated, AS notifies
application layer. Here, the LNS play the role that is LNS about the granted access rights of the MA to use the
originally responsible by the AP with IEEE 802.1X [25] tunnel. The LNS then forwards the notification to the LAC
capability in the EAP-SIM based authentication. In Fig. 2, where the MA is associated. The associated IP address of
we abstract the signals of EAP-SIM based authentication in the LACs is added to the binding list in LNS. After the
two messages: Authentication Request and authentication, LNS maintains multiple communication
Authentication Response. Once authenticated, the MN can paths between the MN and its CN. The multicast traffic the
register to the application server and then establish mobile node delivers to its CN or vise versa is sent via the
connection with the CN before packet transmission. LNS-LACs pairs VPN tunnels, which are based on multi-
Thereafter, LNS can intercept the packets from CN and homing conception.
tunnels them to the LAC where the MN is associated, or
vice versa. An LAC is the access router of a subnet and • Phase 3 – Ending of the handover
responsibility to tunnel the packets from/to the LNS. Our Once the MN moves out the range of its original LAC
deployment of LAC is in accordance with the assumptions and into that of a pre-authenticated LAC, a secure
that no more than two individual LACs are located in the communication is setup with its MA. The MN receives the
same Foreign Intranet and the APs in a Foreign Intranet are secured report from its MA including granted access rights
all assigned an identical Extended Service Set Identification of its MA to use the tunnel. After authentication, the MN
(ESSID). Hence, an MN located within a Foreign Intranet gets full access to use the tunnel. It starts receiving the
can recognize the neighboring Foreign Intranet by the undelivered packets on the tunnel as soon as the connection
ESSID value carrying in the link-level beacons and to to its LAC is established. After attached to the new LAC,
determine the numbers of neighboring LACs. Periodically, the mobile node must inform the LNS of its new location by
each AP sends out a link-level beacon containing ESSID the means of Location Update message which results in the
that can let MNs to measure the signal strength and to unicast traffic. Finally, if there are no packets transmitted
recognize the Foreign Intranets. After completing the EAP- within a specific time period, the connection to the old LAC
SIM based authentication, the LNS who also plays the via the old routing path is closed, and the MAs in the other
service proxy in the VPN home network will send an neighboring LACs are removed by the notification of L2TP
Access-Accept message to the application service (i.e., CN) Hello message sending from LNS.
in order to notify the application service about the
authentication successful. This action can enable the IV. Performance analysis of seamless handover
following legal service registration and the session setup
 In the performance analyses, a comparison is made between a MN and AS, and the retrieval time of user profile
between the handover delay of the original Mobile IP from HLR/VLR. The sum of these delays would average
system and that of the proposed system above (Fig. 3). The 3000ms (or 3s).
original Mobile-IP system is shown in the left part of the Fig. DHCP delay is explained as below. As the first-time
3. The handover procedure begins when the MN initiates its register of the DHCP client to the server, the client has four
L2 handover or the signal strength in the current subnet is steps as described in Fig. 4 to complete the register. The
lower than a certain threshold. The L2 handover lasts first step is looking for the DHCP server. The client would
approximately 100ms. The handover procedure continues send a DHCPDISCOVER packet to the network with
when the MN acquires an IP address from a DHCP server. 0.0.0.0 as its source address and 255.255.255.255 as its
The delay for the dynamic IP address allocation destination address. The default DHCPDISCOVER waiting
approximates 2s. The handover procedure continues with L3 time of Windows is set to be 1 second, in other words, if the
handover. The delay for L3 handover is around 542ms. The client didn’t receive the response, it would send the second
handover procedure ends with the service authentication and time of DHCPDISCOVER, and the next waiting time would
registration. The delay for the service authentication and be set to be 9 seconds (and 13, 16 seconds as follow). The
registration is around 3s. The overall delay is around 5.6s. second step is for DHCP server to offer a rent of IP address.
The proposed Mobile-Agent based pre-authentication When the DHCP server has listened to the
system is shown in the right part the Figure 3. Our proposed DHCPDISCOVER broadcast, it would select an unused IP
system solves most of handover incidents that cause delay. address with other TCP/IP setting to be included in the
First, we proposed a solution for the reduction of the DHCPOFFER response to the client. The third step is for
dynamic IP address allocation delays via the VPN DHCP client to accept the rent of IP address. If client
connectivity. Then, we proposed the MA pre-authentication received multiple responses form different servers, it would
mechanisms to solve the application layer authentication only choose one to reply DHCPOFFER (usually the first
and registration delay. Ideally the application layer arrived). Then client would broadcast a DHCPREQUEST to
authentication and registration are finished in advance, so inform all servers what it chose. The last step is to confirm
the changing of the subnet at a later point of time can be the lease. After the server has received DHCPREQUEST, it
carried out with minimum delay and no uncertainty about would send a DHCPACK to the client, and finish the
resource availability. The MN dispatches the MAs to the procedures.
neighboring Foreign Intranets when it is still Beside, the Layer 3 handover delay is caused by the
delivering/receiving the packets over the old Foreign process of standard Mobile IP handover. The standard
Intranet. So the initial timeline for our proposed system is mobile IP handover implementation initiates a network-
moved ahead of that of the Mobile-IP system. Besides, we layer handover only upon reception of an agent (the fixed
employ the multi-homing concepts to minimize the packet MIP agent) advertisement in the agent discovery procedure,
loss during the handover. By configuring the VPN tunnel to which takes 500ms for average (the half of advertisement
provide static IP address allocation and performing MA pre- duration), and followed by the DHCP procedure.
authentication during the L2 handover, the overall delay was Subsequent mobile IP processing may take around
greatly reduced from 5.6s to about 100 ms. 35ms~50ms, which is varying depending on the network
The delay analyses are described as below. Here, each delays. Hence, the Layer 3 handover averages 542ms.
presented delay is the average value from the experimental By comparing to the original Mobile-IP, our proposed
results referred from [26]. Mobile-Agent Pre-authentication system remains only the
L2 handover delay. Even if the multi-homing is not
L2 L2 handover delay IPA DHCP (IP address) delay supported due to the fact that the multi-homing causes more
L3 L3 handover delay DIS DHCP Discovering delay bandwidth utilization, it may induce the average handover
SA Service Authentication OFR DHCP Offering delay delay to extend to 642ms.
PR Probe delay REQ DHCP Request delay
AU Authentication delay ACK DHCP ACK delay V. Conclusions
RA Re-association delay AAD Average Agent discovery
BU Binding update delay REP Reply message delay We investigate the delay of different layers of network
protocol stack (e.g., link layer, network layer, transport layer,
Handover delay = L2 + IPA + L3 + SA, and application layer) and develop an efficient method to
where L2 = PR + AU + RA ≅ 100 ms, achieve seamless handover. We propose the architecture
supporting the VoIP seamless handover to eliminate
IPA = DIS + OFR + REQ + ACK ≅ 2s,
connection interruption during inter-AP roaming. Based on
L3 = AAD + BU+ REP ≅ 542ms.
the mobile agent and multi-homing concepts, we could
reduce the handover delay down to L2 radio link switching
However, the delays in service authentication and
delay and packet loss ratio in addition to the fast handover
registration could be varied by two factors, i.e. the distance
for MIPv6 in the IETF draft. Although the MA-based pre-
authentication system requires more networks bandwidth, it Agents: An Overview,” IEEE Comm. Magazine,
only generates traffic when the MN wants exclusive access vol.36, no.7, Jul. 1998.
to its MA to renew the connection with foreign subnet. [15] B. Emako et al. “A mobile agent-based advanced
However, it eliminates the service disruption period service architecture for wireless Internet telephony:
currently present during handoffs in Mobile IPv6 networks design, implementation, and evaluation,” IEEE
due to end-to-end packet transmission delay caused by Transactions on Computers, Vol. 52, No. 6, Jun. 2003.
triangle routing. [16] FIPA, The Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents,
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VI. References [17] OMG, Object Management Group,
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 t Mobile Agent pre - DHCP DHCP
Original Mobile IP
authentication
Client Server
Starting time could be more advanced -2920 ms

Last packet Last packet

transmitted over old transmitted over old Service DHCPDISCOVER
subnet subnet authentication
and registration (broadcast)
Layer 2 handover delay Layer 2 handoff delay

First packet 80 ms
100 ms 100 ms DHCPOFFER
transmitted over new
DHCP delay subnet
for IP
address Layer 3 handover delay (100Mbps)
Assignment 642 ms DHCPREQUEST
New IP address (COA) 2100 ms (broadcast)
Layer 3 handover delay (100Mbps)
DHCPACK
2642 ms
Service
authentication
and registration Old AP within old subnet
First packet
transmitted over new 5642 ms New AP within new subnet Fig. 4 DHCP Signaling
subnet
Fig. 3 Performance Comparison between the original
Mobile IP system and the proposed Mobile Agent based
Pre-authentication system

Mobile original new other LNS Authentication Application

Node LAC LAC neighboring LACs (Service Proxy) Server Server (CN)

Establish IPSec Tunnel IPSec tunnel is tunneled through L 2TP tunnel

(MN ÅÆ LNS)
Authentication Request
Authentication Response
Access Accept
OK
Service Registration Request
Service Registration Re sponse
Session Setup
Data Transmission Phase 1
Initialized
Detect
Neighboring LACs

Mobile Agents
Number of LACs
Authentication
Mobile Mobile
Request Agents
Agent
Authentication Response

Update binding list

Multicasting Data Transmission

Phase 2
Pre-authenticated
L2 handoff
to new LAC

Multicasting Data Transmission

Mobile
Secured Report Agent
Mobile Agent expired

Location Update

Notification
Delete Mobile Agents Update binding list
Phase 3
Data Transmission

Fig. 2 message flow of whole handover procedure