Mobile IPv4 Fast Handovers

Mobile IPv6 enables a mobile node (MN) to maintain its connectivity to the Internet when moving from one Access Router to another, a process referred to as handover.During handover, there is a period during which the mobile node is unable to send or receive packets because of link-switching delay and IP protocol operations.This "handover latency" resulting from standard Mobile IPv6 procedures (namely, movement detection, new Care-of Address configuration, and Binding Update) is often unacceptable to real-time traffic such as Voice over IP (VoIP).Reducing the handover latency could be beneficial to non-real-time, throughput-sensitive applications as well.This document specifies a protocol to improve handover latency due to Mobile IPv6 procedures.This document does not address improving the link-switching latency.