Gerenciamento de mobilidade de fluxos IP em dispositivos com múltiplas interfaces

Abstract

With different wireless technologies such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 3G being deployed to provide ubiquitous access, it is natural that coverage area of these networks overlap in certain areas. This overlap allows users to choose how to connect to Internet through multiple access interfaces available in today's mobile devices. Furthermore, the availability of multiple radio interfaces may be most beneficial if all of these interfaces are used in a collaborative manner. This requires a service that is capable of providing routing traffic between different interfaces of the device according to the requirements of each stream being transmitted. In this context, solutions such as Mobile IP and Proxy Mobile IP are designed to ensure transparency and the selectivity of the movement of data flows between the different interfaces. This is usually achieved by introducing an agent in the network architecture or device, which acts as packet forwarding point. Incoming packet flows are directed to different interfaces of the mobile device according to the types of packets of each traffic flow. This work extends this approach by analyzing the user's preferences, the context in which the device is inserted and the requirements of each stream being transmitted before deciding whether to perform a change of interface, thus avoiding unnecessary reconfigurations. Tests performed in a real environment demonstrated the importance of considering the requirements of each flow to determine the execution of interface change and thus decrease the handover signaling costs and unnecessary reconfigurations of interface which can generate a low quality communication.