Patent ID: 6954647

Claim:
A mobility management method for a wireless data network having a plurality of routing areas, each routing area having a plurality of cells, the wireless data network performing mobility management by finite state machines in a mobile device and a network apparatus, the finite state machine having a standby state, a ready state and an idle state, each of the mobile device and the network apparatus having a ready counter, the method determining a timing for switching from the ready state to the standby state for the mobile device and the network apparatus, and comprising the steps of: (A) resetting the ready counters of the mobile device and the network apparatus to have the same threshold K, where K is a non-negative integer, wherein the threshold K in a packet idle period has an optimal value of 0 or Nc+1, where Nc is a number of cells crossed by the mobile device in the packet idle period, the packet idle period is a time interval between two adjacent packet transmissions, and the threshold K between two packet transmissions is an average of multiple previous optimal threshold values; (B) decrementing the ready counter whenever the mobile device crosses one cell; (C) switching the mobile device and network apparatus to the standby state when the ready counter counts to zero; and (D) when the mobile device successfully transfers a packet and the network apparatus successfully receives a packet, resetting the ready counters of the mobile device and network apparatus and switching the mobile device and network apparatus to the ready state.