The Mobile Internet Protocol (Mobile IP), developed within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), is designed to extend the Internet architecture to support mobile computing. The origins of the Internet sit firmly in the wired world, and the core Internet protocol stack does not readily support access from the variety of mobile electronic devices -- including personal digital assistants (PDAs), intelligent cell phones, portable game machines, and digital cameras -- from which users now want to conduct data communications or avail themselves of information on the World Wide Web. Mobile IP addresses these requirements within the fabric of the overall Internet.
This report provides background on the Mobile IP protocol and its objectives, and reviews related research which has been reported in the literature. Section 2 of this report supplies a description and overview of the baseline Mobile IP protocol; Section 3 describes several performance enhancements to the baseline Mobile IP definition which address Routing Overhead and Mobility Management Overhead issues; Section 4 covers work on information security research related to Mobile IP, with emphasis on the Non-Disclosure Method (NDM); Section 5 discusses Quality of Service as it relates to Mobile IP; and Section 6 gives an overview of several related wireless networking issues that come into play at the Internet Transport Layer. Finally, Section 7 provides a brief conclusion.