Simulating Game Applications in Mobile IPv6 Protocol

Background

Nowadays, wireless technologies are widely used in IPv6 communications (Johnson, et al., 2004). In addition to sharp increase of mobile terminals, various kinds of wireless technologies are available for MNs. Therefore, many mobile nodes begin to have multiple wireless interfaces and every user wants to use them simultaneously to reinforce connectivity to the Internet. Selection of the most efficient and suitable access network to meet a specific application’s Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirements has thus recently become a significant topic, the actual focus of which is maximizing the QoS experienced by the user. The main concept is that users will rely on intelligent network selection decision strategies to aid them in optimal network selection. Fast-Handover Mobile IPv6 (FMIPv6) (Koodli, 2005) already offers some rudimentary handover features. For instance, a MN may send a binding update to its Present Access Router (PAR). This causes the PAR to redirect packets towards the new Care-of-Address (CoA) of the MN.

In the present context, while the MN moves around a certain area, it keeps checking the around Access Routers (ARs), once it receives that there is an AR around it, it will start the handover procedure between the PAR and the New Access Router (NAR). Yet, there is no way for the user and/or the application to force the MN not to make the handover in order to stay with the AR that offers a better service. On the other hand, game theory (Rasmusen, 2006) is a set of tools developed to model interactions between agents with conflicting interests, and is thus well suited to address some problems in communications systems, which might be related to interface and/or network selection mechanisms. Game theory skills can be easily adapted for use in radio resource management mechanisms in a heterogeneous environment. Accordingly, the following sections present a mechanism for combining interface and/or network selection mechanisms and game theory. In such a way that the user and/or the application will have the ability to dynamically control which network to access while moving around different AP’s.