Mobile Internet Protocol Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Mobile Internet Protocol - Essay Example However, the higher-level protocols require IP address of a host to be fixed for identifying connections'. IP protocol is therefore a necessary element of the network activities. In this context, many companies that activate in the area of IT technology and especially those which provide network - related services offer to their customers the chance to use Internet even when they are far from their home or office, i.e. when there is a physical distance from the area where the Internet connected device is placed and operate. The particular technology that offers such an advantage is called Mobile IP and it is available by several IT companies including CISCO, IBM, NOKIA and so on, which have included the above technology in their products offering at the same time to the interest customers all the necessary support. According to a general definition of Mobile IP used by CISCO (2006) 'Mobile IP provides users the freedom to roam beyond their home subnet while consistently maintaining their home IP address; This enables transparent routing of IP data grams to mobile users during their movement, so that data sessions can be initiated to them while they roam; it also enables sessions to be maintained in spite of physical movement between points of attachment to the Internet or other networks'. In the same context, it has been stated that Mobile IP is 'a standard that allows users with mobile devices whose IP addresses are associated with one network to stay connected when moving to a network with a different IP address; When a user leaves the network with which his device is associated (home network) and enters the domain of a foreign network, the foreign network uses the Mobile IP protocol to inform the home network of a care-of address to which all packets for the user's device should be sent. Image 1 - Description of a Mobile IP system (Ghosh, 2006) In a similar definition presented by Chen (2006) 'Mobile IP is an internet protocol designed to support host mobility; Its goal is to provide the ability of a host to stay connected to the internet regardless of their location; Mobile IP is able to track a mobile host without needing to change the mobile host's long-term IP address'. It should be noticed that in accordance with Ollikainen (1999) 'when IP routing was originally defined, mobility of hosts was not considered to be an issue because routing methods were built for static networks, where the hosts were unlikely to move from one subnet to another. Thus, the IP address encodes the computer's physical location, and - by default - the location is fixed'. The main element of Mobile IP is therefore the IP protocol which enables the users to access the Internet even when they are far from the device which is connected with the Internet - the use of a mobile node towards the achievement of such an effort is crucial. It should also be noticed that Mobile IP tends to present a different level of performance in accordance with the system in which it is implemented (i.e. capabilities of the specific system) as well as with the type of protocol using for its formulation and configuration. More