Chapter 8. Advanced ServicesIPv6 Mobility

From game consoles to IP phones, billions of new devices are becoming IP enabled, requiring a larger addressing space and improved plug-and-play networking capabilities, and therefore the deployment of IPv6.

At the same time, we observe the creation of a "mobiquitous" pervasive networking and computing fabric, composed of handheld devices, medical diagnostic systems, automotive gateways, and so on. Initially available to the military and specific verticals such as the police, radio data communication is becoming widely available to the masses because of the available technology and the local rulings.

For a number of years now, business users have accessed the Internet while in transit. Typically, they couple their cell phone to their multimedia assistants and then switch to some public 802.11 wireless access.

As the technology reaches the masses, a new form of connectivity is developing at the fringes of the Internet: low-cost consumer devices have started shaping loose, intermittent, ad-hoc networks; and cities deploy larger mesh networks to provide low-cost, high-bandwidth connectivity to all citizens.

The continuous connectivity facilitates the emergence of a new breed of applications: push services such as stock alerts and sport results, peer-to-peer services such as multimedia messaging, and voice integration. But for an ISP to deliver these applications, the user must be always reachable at the same network identifier regardless of its point of attachment.

IP mobility and IPv6 are designed to respond to this requirement. Coupling the two appears to be an even better idea. Because Neighbor Discovery (ND) has the built-in mechanisms for faster movement detection and address autoconfiguration, IPv6 is significantly better positioned with respect to mobility than IPv4.

IPv6 is the keystone to elaborate on this new service model, and, in return, mobility is one of the drivers for making IPv6 a deployment reality.