Patent ID: 8374149

Claim:
A method of controlling handover in a Hierarchical Mobile IPv6 (HMIPv6)-based network, comprising: (a) a first Access Router (AR), to which a Mobile Node (MN) is connected, receiving an L3 handover initiation message that includes a Media Access Control (MAC) address of the MN and an identifier (ID) of a target Base Station (BS); (b) the first AR creating a first Local Care-of Address (LCoA) based on the MAC address of the MN and the ID of the target BS, and performing a Binding Update (BU) on a Mobility Anchor Point (MAP) using the first LCoA; (c) a second AR (1) receiving an L2 handover completion message from the target BS of the MN, (2) creating a second LCoA, and (3) transmitting the second LCoA to the MN; and (d) the MN receiving the second LCoA from the second AR and configuring the second LCoA as its own LCoA; wherein: after the BU is performed in (b), the MAP (1) notifies the first AR that the BU is complete, (2) transmits a buffering request message that includes the first LCoA to the second AR, (3) receives data packets having the first LCoA as a destination, and (4) transmits the data packets to the second AR, the second AR, after receiving the buffering request message and data packets having the first LCoA as a destination, buffers the data packets, after the second LCoA is configured in (d), the second AR transmits the buffered data packets to the MN, and the L2 handover completion message comprises the MAC address the MN, the first LCoA is used for data transmission between the MAP and the second AR until the L2 handover completion message is received by the second AR, and the second LCoA is used for data transmission to the MN after the L2 handover completion message is received by the second AR; wherein the first LCoA is not the same as the second LCoA.