A Cross-layer Mechanism Based on Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for Service Continuity of Real-Time Applications

Abstract—Most important frameworks supporting mobile communications are not capable of meeting real-time application requirements because of the service degradation appearing during the handover process. Such degradation is mainly noticed as an excessive blocking time and a non-negligible packet loss rate. This is due to slow procedures for address allocation, too much packets exchanged by signaling procedures, and the delay required to establish a new end-to-end delivery path. Although these problems have been widely analyzed, and a number of solutions have been proposed, better handover performances are still needed. In this paper, we propose the introduction of some functionalities into access point equipments to improve the handover performances. These functionalities are based on the reduction of both the address allocation delay and the number of exchanged signaling packets, as well as the parallel execution of certain procedures. Our approach is implemented over the signaling mechanism of Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), from which extended options are used to convey information related to each procedure allowing mobile communication to be maintained. Keywords-component; mobility; cross-layer; real-time; DHCP; I