Patent ID: 7656840

Claim:
A method, comprising: authenticating a mobile node by an access router; authorizing the mobile node to participate in a candidate access router discovery procedure; maintaining, by the access router within a mobile internet protocol environment, a cache of neighboring access routers as handover candidates, capabilities of the neighboring access routers, and associated access points of the neighboring access routers, wherein access routers are considered neighbors only if the access routers comprise access points with overlapping coverage areas; and populating the cache with a cache entry in response to a handover action of the mobile node, wherein the cache entry concerns a neighboring access router, the capabilities of the neighboring access router, and an associated access point from which the mobile node is handed over, wherein the cache entry is tagged with authentication information of the mobile node, and wherein a total number of cache entries that can be tagged and thus introduced into the cache by the mobile node is limited.