Internet Access System is designed to replace Mobile IP.
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Press Release Summary:
Utilizing As and When Network Appearance and Disappearance Mechanism, Wavebend Scalable Access System provides seamless local and global roaming for 802.11 network mobile hosts. Product does not incorporate Home/Foreign Agents or middlemen; there is direct one-to-one connection between mobile host and correspondent node(s). Mobile host will have persistent connection to Internet without disruption of service or incurring bandwidth drain to network.
Original Press Release:
Talgajarda's "As and When" Network Appearance and Disappearance Mechanism as a Replacement for Mobile IP
Talgajarda Inc. provides seamless local and global roaming for 802.11 network mobile hosts with its Wavebend Scalable Access System product. The highlight of the Wavebend Scalable Access System's seamless roaming technology is the "As and When" Network Appearance and Disappearance Mechanism, which is unique to Talgajarda.
Talgajarda's "As and When" Network Appearance and Disappearance Mechanism is a total replacement for Mobile IP, which is pretty much the de-facto standard for mobility in 3G and other Wireless IP networks including 802.11. It is also a replacement for any other standard or similar software or architecture, which resembles or is built upon Mobile IP. This is because the "As and When" mechanism is architecturally different.
Current 802.11 Specification and Mobile IP
The mechanism to determine when to roam is not defined by the IEEE 802.11 specification and is, therefore, left to vendors to implement. Although this issue posed an interoperability challenge early on with the first 802.11 products, vendors work together today to ensure basic interoperability. The fact that the algorithms are left to vendor implementation provide vendors an opportunity to differentiate themselves by creating new and better performing algorithms than their competitors. Roaming algorithms become a vendor's "secret ingredient," and as a result are kept confidential.
To put it into simple words, whether someone likes it or not, all roaming mechanisms available today crop up, in some form or the other, from a "Mobile IP" base. Vendors may add a few things here and there, call their roaming mechanisms by different names, and may also top it all off by getting a stylish patent, but the actual source still remains the same.
The "As and When" Network Appearance and Disappearance Mechanism is architecturally different, and has nothing to do with Mobile IP. Due to the immense architectural advantages over Mobile IP and other related mechanisms it is considered a total replacement, and as the "As and When" mechanism is a part of Talgajarda's Wavebend Scalable Access System it would be appropriate to say that "Wavebend Scalable Access System provides seamless roaming of the future---NOW". A better picture of this might be derived after reading this full article.
First we shall discuss Mobile IP in the shortest, most informative manner possible. Then we shall reflect the "As and When" mechanism against it.
Brief Description of Mobile IP
For data access services and multimedia communication, it is seen as desirable to adapt traditional applications and services people are accustomed to use in the fixed network, and extend them to make them available to the mobile user in a seamless manner.
The most dominant services in mobility are the Internet/Intranet services, which run on top of the IP protocol. Internet host mobility poses a problem at the network layer (IP) when a mobile host moves from one sub-net to another. Routing tables have to be updated to route packets to the destination sub-net instead of the original sub-net. This procedure is highly inefficient and time consuming, in particular, if a mobile host needs to retain its network address (IP address) while changing sub-nets. But if a mobile host changes its network address, all established Transport Layer connections (TCP) are broken.
For example, imagine a mobile host who has a persistent connection to the internet.
When the mobile host registers for data services, i.e. the mobile host initiates a data call, he/she will be assigned a unique IP address. The persistent connection to the internet is based on a Transport Layer connection that is dependent on the connection invariant. "Connection Invariant" means: source IP address, port, destination IP address, port. This must be unique and constant for each connection lifetime. But as he/she moves to another cell the point of attachment for data services and therefore the sub-net, may change (for instance, if the user moves across service providers'roaming). If the mobile host is now assigned a new IP address, all the Transport Layer connections will break down. The persistent connection will therefore be aborted.
This is the problem that Mobile IP seeks to solve. Specifically, Mobile IP defines a set of entities that enable routing of packets to the mobile host.
Mobile IPv4 consists of three components: the Mobile Node, a Home Agent and a Foreign Agent.
A Mobile Node is a node that moves from one sub-net to another sub-net, and its IP address is called a Home Address.
A Correspondent Node is the host with which the Mobile Node is trying to communicate on the Internet.
The sub-net to which the Home Address belongs, is called the Home Network and the routing entity on this Home Network that does the job of forwarding packets to the Mobile Nodes is called the Home Agent.
When the Mobile Node moves to another sub-net, this new sub-net is called the Foreign Network. The routing entity receiving packets on behalf of the Mobile Node on the Foreign Network is called the Foreign Agent.
The Foreign Agent operates as a router on the Foreign Network that the mobile node is visiting.
A router is a device (hardware or software) that determines the next network point to which a network data packet should be forwarded toward its destination.
There are three stages in the operation of the Mobile IP:
Agent Discovery: This refers to the process by which a Mobile Node discovers a Mobility Agent (Home Agent or Foreign Agent) on a Foreign Network.
Registration: This refers to the process by which a Mobile Node registers itself on a Foreign Network with the Home Agent for Mobile IP Routing and Packet Delivery Services.
Routing and Packet Delivery: This refers to the process by which packets are routed from a Mobile Node to a Correspondent Host and back.
Agent Discovery
When a Mobile Node attaches to a network, it first determines whether it is on its Home Network or on a Foreign Network. It does so by listening for a local broadcast message from a Home Agent or Foreign Agent. This message is called an Agent Advertisement. Alternatively, it can solicit an Agent Advertisement by broadcasting an Agent Solicitation message. These messages are based on extensions to ICMP Router Discovery Messages.
Registration
When a Mobile Node is visiting a Foreign Network detected by the Mobile Node through the Agent Discovery procedure, the Mobile Node must "Register" with the Foreign Agent.
Registration informs the Foreign Agent of the presence of a Mobile Node requiring routing services on its sub-net. Registration also informs the Home Agent of the current location (sub-net) and Care-of Address of the Mobile Node. The Care-of Address refers to an address local to the Foreign Network that the Mobile Node is currently visiting. This address is accessible through normal IP routing. It could be the address of the Foreign Agent or an address dynamically assigned to the Mobile Node.
To register, the Mobile Node sends a Registration Request message (RRQ) to the Foreign Agent. The Foreign Agent processes the message and forwards it to the Home Agent (as specified in the RRQ or dynamically assigned).
On receiving a valid RRQ, the Home Agent creates a mobility binding (or updates an existing binding) that pairs the Mobile Node Home Address with the current Care-of Address. The Home Agent sends a Registration Reply (RRP) with a code indicating registration success to the Foreign Agent. The Foreign Agent relays the RRP to the Mobile Node.
Routing and Packet Delivery
On successful registration, the Home Agent then sets up an IP tunnel between itself and the Care-of Address indicated in the RRP. This is usually the address of the Foreign Agent. This tunnel is used to encapsulate and forward IP packets destined for the Mobile Node to the Foreign Network over the internet. The Foreign Agent de-capsulates the packets and routes them to the Mobile Node using a static route. In order to intercept packets destined for the Mobile Node, the Home Agent implements Proxy ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) procedures.
Packets from the Mobile Node to the target host (Correspondent Node) can be routed directly, bypassing the Home Agent as the destination IP address - that of the Correspondent Node is reachable using normal IP routing. This results in a triangular routing of traffic between the Mobile Node, Correspondent Node and Home Agent. Outgoing packets from the Mobile Node to the Correspondent Node are routed directly, while incoming packets from the Correspondent Node to the Mobile Node are routed via the Home Agent. This is not necessarily efficient.
In addition, when a Mobile Node changes its location, it can register with a new Foreign Agent, though traffic directed by the Home Agent to the "old" Foreign Agent will be lost until the new Mobile Node has registered its location.
In most cases such as routers with ingress filtering, packets whose source address does not match the source sub-net (such as a Mobile Node visiting a Foreign Network) are blocked. In this case, the Mobile Node is forced to request Reverse Tunneling. Reverse Tunneling refers to the tunneling by the Foreign Agent to the Home Agent of all outgoing packets of the Mobile Node. Outgoing packets are therefore tunneled to the Home Network and then routed to the Correspondent Node.
Mobile IPv4 Route Optimization defines extensions to the operation of the base Mobile IP protocol to allow the Correspondent Node to maintain a binding cache to one or more Mobile Nodes.
Talgajarda's "As and When" Network Appearance and Disappearance Mechanism Reflected Against Mobile IP:
No Agents Involved
The first thing that the "As and When" mechanism does is to remove agents or middlemen, that is Home Agent and Foreign Agent in the case of Mobile IP. There is no Home Agent, Foreign Agent or any other agent(s) in the Wavebend Scalable Access System's "As and When" mechanism. There is a direct one-to-one connection between the mobile host and the Correspondent Node(s).
No Handoff Mechanism/No Care-of Address/No Tunneling
The handoff mechanisms of Mobile IP are both bandwidth draining and network delaying. The Care-of Addresses further consume bandwidth and cause delay to the network, and the tunneling is in fact the worst of all bandwidth-sucking mechanisms.
There is no handoff or tunneling involved at all in the Wavebend Scalable Access System, and not to mention, if there are no handoffs or tunneling involved, there are no network broadcasts involved either. This means you will not find a CDMA-type network broadcast mechanism because the Wavebend Scalable Access System does not waste bandwidth by broadcasting unnecessarily. Also, since there are no agents there are no Care-of Addresses.
No Triangular Routing or Reverse Tunneling
The worst factor of all is the triangular routing of traffic between the Mobile Node, Correspondent Node and Home Agent where the packets from the Correspondent Node to the Mobile Node are routed via the Home Agent every time. This is an utmost performance-degrading factor.
When a mobile host changes its location, the traffic directed by the Home Agent still goes blindly to the "old" Foreign Agent until the mobile host registers with a new Foreign Agent. Therefore, there is not only delay and unnecessary bandwidth consumption, but more importantly a severe packet loss resulting in extreme re-transmissions of packets, which finally results in network flooding. If you are using UDP or similar protocol packets there will be no re-transmissions, but a permanent loss will be incurred.
Also, in cases such as routers with ingress filtering, packets whose source address does not match the source sub-net (such as a Mobile Node visiting a Foreign Network) are blocked. In this case, the Mobile Node is forced to request Reverse Tunneling, thus taking more time and bandwidth. Reverse Tunneling refers to the tunneling by the Foreign Agent to the Home Agent of all outgoing packets of the Mobile Node. Outgoing packets are therefore tunneled to the Home Network and then routed to the Correspondent Node. This causes network clogging which cannot be fixed immediately.
There are no agents involved in the Wavebend Scalable Access System's "As and When" mechanism, and therefore there is no triangular routing like in Mobile IP. Also, since there is no tunneling involved the question of Reverse Tunneling does not arise.
No Registration
In Mobile IP the mobile host has to register with the new Foreign Agent, which in turn has to connect to the Home Agent, which then has to make up its mind whether to accept or decline the registration.
In the Wavebend Scalable Access System's "As and When" mechanism there is no mobile host registration business.
No Binding Cache Required for Mobile Hosts
As the Mobile IPv4 Route Optimization defines extensions to the operation of the base Mobile IP protocol to allow the Correspondent Node to maintain a binding cache to one or more mobile hosts, you can only imagine how much network cache must be required to maintain thousands of mobile hosts, and how much apt processing power must also be required to process the entries in the network cache.
The Wavebend Scalable Access System is a wireless server and can span gigabytes of memory with more than enough processing power. Plus, due to the "As and When" mechanism there are no useless transactions like there are in Mobile IP.
So, there is no scalability involved in Mobile IP at all.
No Scanning Involved by Wavebend Scalable Access System or by Mobile Hosts
The other matter of concern is that, especially in the case of 802.11 networks, the mobile hosts are constantly scanning for separate access points, and this scanning involves individually looking for separate access points on different channels. This causes immediate disruption in services when it tends to find other access points nearby, as it is constantly hopping through all the other channels and dwelling on them as it scans. This severely affects mobile voice/video over the internet by causing abrupt disconnections and breakages.
Active scanning is a performance-deteriorating mechanism used to find 802.11 access points by the mobile hosts. It requires the mobile host to dwell on a particular channel for a set length of time, roughly 10 to 20 milliseconds (ms) depending on the vendor, waiting for the probe response.
In passive scanning the mobile host moves through the channels slower than in active scanning because it is listening for beacons that are sent out by access points at a set rate (usually 10 beacons per second).
The Wavebend Scalable Access System does not do any active or passive scanning for mobile hosts, and the mobile hosts also do not do any active or passive scanning for Wavebend Scalable Access Systems.
Please do not mistake the "As and When" mechanism with any of the features of current-day 802.11 access points, base stations or Mobile IP. The Wavebend Scalable Access System is a direct replacement for 802.11 access points and base stations.
"As and When" Mechanism's Persistent Connection to the Internet
When we say that the mobile hosts will have persistent connection to the internet via local or global Wavebend Scalable Access Systems we mean that the mobile host will have a persistent connection to the internet without disruption of service and without incurring bandwidth drain to the network, no matter how many gateways the mobile hosts go through at whatever speed.
Seamless Roaming Across Separate, Entirely Different Internet Gateways
Like mentioned above, there is a one-to-one connection between the mobile host and its destination host(s) on the Internet, which remains persistent. Mind you, it remains persistent even when you go through different Wavebend Scalable Access Systems having entirely different Internet gateways.
These Internet gateways can be at any location, and can be up to any number, and most importantly they do not need to have any connection or interaction among themselves to notify each other about the mobile host(s). All the internet gateways are self-reliant with absolutely no dependency on any other internet gateway. In fact, they do not have to hear, see, feel or touch any other internet gateways that are sharing internet to the mobile hosts via the Wavebend Scalable Access Systems located at different places.
Every time a mobile host goes through different Wavebend Scalable Access Systems with different internet gateways, they just go through the different internet gateways as and when they appear and disappear.
All the management and authentication of mobile hosts via different gateways located at different places can also be performed from a centralized location. Also remember, no client software needs to be installed on the mobile hosts for them to be recognized by the Wavebend Scalable Access System.
Therefore a definite question comes up with all this mentioned:
If the Wavebend Scalable Access System does not use CDMA like network broadcasts, neither does it actively or passively scan for mobile hosts or the mobile hosts actively or passively scan for Wavebend Scalable Access System(s), then how is the whole scenario even working?
The answer is simple. Talgajarda's Wavebend Scalable Access System technology just makes it happen.
A small example can be given regarding the appearance and disappearance of a mobile host and the speed at which he/she appears and disappears.
Say location "A" is 50 miles outside of Boston and a mobile host is talking over the internet phone on his/her handheld device and says the following words: "Hello, how" and then suddenly disappears within a flash of a second and appears in Boston and says: "are you?" The person at the receiving end will hear it as "Hello, how are you?" without any breakage. This is because in the "As and When" mechanism the "As and When" uplink packets bring about an "As and When" downlink response.
Therefore it is again mentioned that there is no network broadcast mechanism like CDMA, so when the person disappeared from location "A", it immediately took off the load from the Wavebend Scalable Access System and its internet gateway(s), which had covered area "A".
From this example, you can see that one could disappear from Boston and reappear in London and still have the same results.
The few points above are just a basic outlining of the problems of Mobile IP. Just by these problems you might want to forget the quality of service.
Further drawbacks of Mobile IP which are not discussed in this document
Not even mentioned here yet is the delay caused by authentication mechanisms, packet distortion caused by noise in the environment and the regular antenna technology used, as opposed to the Wavebend Scalable Access System's 3-Dimensional multi-polarized antenna technology. A Discussion on these issues would be very interesting, but would require more of your time and another document.
Final Thought
It is hard to comprehend how in reality will the networks that use Mobile IP, Mobile IP clones or Mobile IP derivatives as their technology base provide seamless mobility even on a small scale? The same question also extends to 3G technology.
The "As and When" Network Appearance and Disappearance Mechanism is just a part of the Wavebend Scalable Access System, which works in conjunction with the Wavebend Scalable Access System's Scalable Transmission Control Architecture, which in turn works closely with the Wavebend Scalable Access System's 3-Dimensional multi-polarized antennas.
About Talgajarda's Wavebend Scalable Access System
Talgajarda, Inc. recently introduced its Wavebend Scalable Access System into the 802.11 network marketplace. The Wavebend Scalable Access System is, essentially, a high-performance wireless server, running server-side, hard-coded Wavebend software.
It is not only a replacement for 802.11 access points and base stations, but it can be used most importantly in the replacement of 3G, GPRS and related technologies in terms of technology, cost-effectiveness, robustness, scalability and zero-deployment time.
Talgajarda also provides free Mobile Mesh Empowerment to mobile and static hosts, thus creating a mobile revolution by enabling mobile and static hosts to be in a Mesh environment, allowing them to be present in as many networks as they want at the same time, while still maintaining the seamless local/global roaming semantics of the Wavebend Scalable Access System.
Company Information
Talgajarda, Inc. has recently released its Wavebend Scalable Access System, which has been solely developed by its Founder and President, Mehul Sharma, and is the only company that provides an all-encompassing, 100% deployment-ready product, which includes all necessary hardware including antennas, connectors, splitters, amplifiers and cables.
Talgajarda would love to hear from and help communities, ISPs and the government. We would appreciate your time and interest to visit our website.
Talgajarda is also looking for distributors and resellers for its product.
The Wavebend Scalable Access System can be found at talgajarda.com
For further inquiries contact: info@talgajarda.com
To purchase the Wavebend Scalable Access System contact: sales@talgajarda.com
To directly correspond with the inventor of the Wavebend Scalable Access System technology contact: mehul@talgajarda.com
You may also read the article titled "Talgajarda's Wavebend Scalable Access System as a Replacement for 3G, GPRS and Related Technologies" at: talgajarda.com/press/aug2004/1.htm
