Patent ID: 8311014

Claim:
A method in a foreign agent for providing an IP (Internet Protocol) session from a home agent to a mobile node offering a virtual care-of address, the method comprising the steps of: sending an agent advertisement to the mobile node to offer to provide the IP session to the mobile node, wherein the agent advertisement includes one or more IP addresses from the foreign agent, one of which is the virtual care-of address, wherein the virtual care-of address is dynamically mapped to one of a plurality of regular care-of addresses in the foreign agent for the IP session, wherein each of the plurality of regular care-of addresses mark the foreign agent's endpoint of each of a plurality of tunnels, wherein the plurality of tunnels are adapted to carry traffic for the IP session between the foreign agent and the home agent that provides a network connection for the IP session; receiving a registration request from the mobile node in response to the agent advertisement, wherein the registration request identifies only one IP address, out of the one or more IP addresses, for use in the IP session for the mobile node; determining whether services in connection with the virtual care-of address should be provided to the mobile node; responsive to determining that the services in connection with the virtual care-of address should not be provided to the mobile node, applying services to the mobile node in connection with one of the plurality of regular care-of addresses in the foreign agent; responsive to determining that the services in connection with the virtual care-of address should be provided to the mobile node, performing the following steps: selecting one or more of the plurality of tunnels to be bound to the virtual care-of address for the IP session, whereby the selection of the tunnel is enabled due to the mobile node's use of the virtual care-of address rather than one of the plurality of regular care-of addresses which are each necessarily tied to a respective tunnel of the plurality of tunnels; and routing the traffic for the IP session through the selected tunnel between the foreign agent and the home agent, whereby utilization and efficiency of the plurality of tunnels for supporting traffic for multiple mobile nodes is improved.