Interworking Scheme Using Optimized SIP Mobility for MultiHomed Mobile Nodes in Wireless Heterogeneous Networks

TL;DR

This paper enhances SIP mobility to support seamless multi-interface handovers in heterogeneous wireless networks, improving service continuity and resource efficiency for multihomed mobile devices.

Contribution

It introduces an optimized SIP mobility scheme with extended pre-call and three mid-call procedures tailored for multihomed nodes in heterogeneous environments.

Findings

Proposed solutions reduce packet loss during interface switching.

Implementation in a real testbed demonstrates improved robustness.

Priority-based address management enhances reachability and resource use.

Abstract

Nowadays, mobile users wish to use their multi-interface mobile devices to access the Internet through network points of attachment (PoA) based on heterogeneous wireless technologies. They also wish to seamlessly change the PoAs during their ongoing sessions to improve service quality and/or reduce monetary cost. If appropriately handled, multihomed mobile nodes offer a potential solution to this issue. In this sense, the management of multihomed mobile nodes in heterogeneous environment is a key research topic. In this paper, we present an improvement of SIP mobility (pre-call plus mid-call mobility) to support seamless mobility of multihomed mobile nodes in heterogeneous wireless networks. Pre-call mobility is extended to associate user identifier (i.e. SIP URI) and interface identifiers (i.e. IP addresses). The multiple addresses of a mobile device are weighted by the user to create a priority list in the SIP server so as to guarantee resilient reachability of mobile nodes and to avoid unnecessary signaling through wireless links, thus saving radio resources. Then, three variations of mid-call mobility, called hard, hybrid and soft procedures, are also proposed. Their main aim is to minimize, or even avoid, packet losses during interface switching at the mobile node. The proposed solutions have been implemented in a wireless heterogeneous testbed composed of 802.11 WLAN plus 3.5 cellular network, which are fully controlled and configurable. The testbed has been used to study the performance and the robustness of the three proposed mid-call mobility procedures.