Patent ID: 6490259
Filing Date: 2002-12-03
Classification: H04L,H04W

Abstract:
A method for managing the mobility of a wireless mobile terminal roaming in a domain of a network, the domain being composed of a plurality of subnets, each of the subnets serving a plurality of base stations, the mobile terminal initially being in communication with a first base station, the method comprising the steps oflocating a second base station to directly communicate with the mobile terminal in place of the first base station, transmitting an outgoing active packet from the mobile terminal to the second base station, the active packet conveying a link layer identifier of the mobile terminal and a time stamp indicative of the time of origination of the outgoing active packet, receiving notification that the outgoing active packet has been received by the second base station, and cooperatively executing a mobility process in the base stations of each of the subnets in response to the outgoing active packet being received by the second base station, said step of executing including the steps of configuring the second base station with a forwarding table entry having a forwarding device link layer field and a time-stamp field and whenever the time stamp and the time-stamp field are different, updating the forwarding device link layer field and the time-stamp field with the time stamp, both with reference to the mobile terminal that has been passing between the base stations.