Truly seamless wireless and mobile host networking. Protocols for adaptive wireless and mobile networking

Abstract

Describes work in routing packets to mobile hosts in a large internetwork, such as the Internet, and gives an overview of implementation work in this area. The authors discuss the problem of routing in an ad hoc network of wireless mobile hosts, as might be needed in an area without established wireless networking infrastructure; they describe a new protocol developed for routing in such a network and summarize the results from a simulation of the protocol. They then describe work in providing support for adaptive operation of higher-layer protocols and applications; they have developed an inexpensive protocol and application programming interface (API) for notifying higher layers when the quality of a mobile host's network connection changes as it moves between different locations, possibly including changes in the type of network in use at each location. Finally, they compare their work to related mobile networking research elsewhere and present conclusions.