Subject: RE: [seamoby] Micro-mobility Issues for IESG to Consider

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 15:41:05 -0600

Hi John,

Comments are below.

>Phil,
>One comment:

>>                 B).  The justification for micro-mobility is
>>                  precisely the same
>>                       as that used for fast handoff (i.e. at
>>                  this point stricly
>>                       an emotional appeal since no hard data
>>                  currently exists).

>MIP has been deployed, at least in lab situations, by many
>companies.

1).  I believe in the world, the US based carrier Nextel has
     the largest Mobile-IP installed base.  They are using
     Motorola/3Com equipment.

2).  The second largest installation is also in the US and it
     is Sprint, also a combination of Motorola/3Com equipment.

[If somebody has other data please correct me]

3).  In both cases, I believe their metropolitan subnets are just
     big subnets, i.e. the subscriber's can not roam off the
     edge, i.e. there is never a mobile IP handoff!  So these
     are not very good testbeds.  [again please correct me if
     I am wrong]  I would cc Phil Roberts to get the data but
     he has just left Motorola!

>  Fast Handoff is an enhancement to an existing
> protocol based upon experience.  MM isn't really in the
> same league (yet).  I don't see any parallels between the
> two (useful parallels, at least).  If we want MM, then
> we need to justify it on its own merits.
>
> John

4).  It is clearly not based on customer installed base
     experience John, at least for the largest installed
     bases in the world.

5).  Regarding parallels.  IMO they both do the same thing
     in the requirements sense NOT in the PROTOCOL SENSE.
     They both reduce or stop signallignalling upstream to
     the home for or foreign agent, they both make handovers
     qualitatively more seamless (nobody has numbers!).

So I disagree.  I say it is just as justified as Fast handover
and presents a viable alternative to fast handover.  In fact
it presents a solution for implementations where there is
no mobile IP infrastructure in place like perhaps in home
networking situations, camping trips, remote automobile
scenarios, dozens of other adhoc situations.

Thanks,

Phil Neumiller

---

From: "David Martin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 08:31:42 -0800

Nextel has ~20 HA and ~200 FAs
They are used to support a large percentage of the 7 million subscribers
(all data subscribers).
*All* of Nextel's data subscribers are Mobile IP clients, *All* do binding
updates several times a day (based mostly on mobility).  HA-FA Tunnells are
built nation-wide.
In short, Nextel has had Mobile IP fully deployed and operational for almost
a year.

---

From: Madhavi Subbarao <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 12:00:50 -0500

Hi Phil,

>      the largest Mobile-IP installed base.  They are using

Actually, the HA and base network is all Cisco equipment. 
The FA is a Motorola Computing Group VME based chassis running
Motorola code on PowerPC chips.  No 3Com equipment (as far as we
know).

>      he has just left Motorola!

According to Stefan Raab (used to be at Nextel, now at Cisco),
the markets are divided into up to 4 foreign agent domains.
A large percentage of users hand-off several times a day in almost
every market. There are also plenty of inter-market hand-offs. People
can actually drive most of the east coast on route 95 and never lose 
coverage. 

Thanks,
Madhavi