Internet DRAFT - draft-korhonen-mobopts-link-characteristics-ps

draft-korhonen-mobopts-link-characteristics-ps






Network Working Group                                        J. Korhonen
Internet-Draft                                               TeliaSonera
Expires: December 11, 2006                                       S. Park
                                                     SAMSUNG Electronics
                                                                J. Zhang
                                                      University of York
                                                                C. Hwang
                                                     SAMSUNG Electronics
                                                            P. Sarolahti
                                                   Nokia Research Center
                                                            June 9, 2006


   Link Characteristic Information for IP Mobility Problem Statement
         draft-korhonen-mobopts-link-characteristics-ps-01.txt

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Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).

Abstract

   This document discusses the problem space related to frequent changes



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   in the local link or sub-path characteristics of a mobile node due to
   various reasons such as vertical handovers and the delivery of the
   sub-path characteristic information from a mobile node to its peer
   nodes.  The purpose of this document is to define the scope and
   requirements for possible future work on a generic sub-path
   characteristic information delivery mechanism for optimizing IP
   mobility  performance and reducing the implications that significant
   changes in the local link or sub-path characteristics tend to create
   to the transport and application protocol behaviour by altering the
   end-to-end path properties.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     1.1   Problem Statement  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.  Terminology  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   3.  Assumptions and Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   4.  Background and Motivations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     4.1   Multimode Wireless Terminals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     4.2   Heterogeneous Networks and Terminal Mobility . . . . . . .  6
     4.3   Adaptive Application and Services  . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     4.4   Traffic Shaping  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     4.5   Network-Initiated Handover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     4.6   Signaling Support  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     4.7   Link Information Facility  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     4.8   Classification of Explicit Notification Mechanisms . . . .  9
   5.  Design Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     5.1   Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     5.2   Out of Scope Issues  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   6.  IANA considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   7.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   8.  Acknowledgments  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   9.  References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     9.1   Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     9.2   Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
       Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
       Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . 19














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1.  Introduction

   Multi-radio mobile nodes (MN) are becoming common and consequently
   the frequency of handovers between different access technologies
   increases.  These mobile nodes, for example mobile phones or PDAs,
   may be reachable through multiple interfaces, even simultaneously.
   The possibility of using a single or multiple interfaces at a time
   for sending and receiving IP packets depends on the mobile node
   capabilities.  In both cases, roaming between heterogeneous links
   (vertical handovers) can occur.  A significant change in the access
   link characteristic as a result of a handover may also affect end-to-
   end path properties.  These changes in the local link characteristics
   and consequently in the end-to-end path properties are usually not
   detected nor reacted quickly enough by higher layer transport
   protocols and applications.  Typically higher layers do not react to
   the changes in path properties until certain mechanisms, such as
   congestion control or error recovery, eventually get invoked at some
   point later.  This may cause undesirable disruptions, performance
   degradation to the ongoing connections, unnecessary underutilization
   of the available network capacity, or sudden overloading of the new
   access link.  For example, when a mobile node performs a handover
   from an IEEE 802.11b WLAN link (high bandwidth link) to a CDMA
   Cellular link (low bandwidth link), the home agent and correspondent
   nodes may still continue transmitting at the rate adapted to the
   802.11b bandwidth.  Because the actual path capacity is now smaller,
   a packet loss burst will occur and often result in inefficient loss
   recovery at the transport protocol level.  The situation could be
   resolved by explicitly informing the other connection peer about the
   significant changes in the local access link characteristics.
   Unfortunately, existing IP mobility, transport and application layer
   protocols do not provide any facility to indicate which type of link
   the mobile node is currently attached to or what kind of changes
   there were on the local access link.

   The local access link characteristic may also vary significantly as a
   result of a handover between links of the same type (horizontal
   handovers).  For example the new link may have significantly more
   traffic load that the old link had or the new route the IP traffic
   now takes has different end-to-end path properties.  Moreover, even
   if the mobile node stays on the same link, the local access link
   characteristics may change significantly due to various reasons, for
   example because of sudden variations of the traffic load on the
   current link.  All of these situations may lead to similar adverse
   effects as those with vertical handovers.

   This document discusses the problems related to the changes in the
   local access link or sub-path characteristics that may also lead to
   changes in the end-to-end path properties.  This document also



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   discusses the actual problems or the lack of delivering the link
   characteristic information between a mobile node and relevant nodes
   along the end-to-end path.  The purpose of this document is to define
   the scope and requirements for generic link or sub-path
   characteristic information delivery for: 1) optimizing mobility
   performance and 2) enhancing transport protocol adaptation to the
   changes end-to-end path properties that are a result of significant
   local access link characteristics.

1.1  Problem Statement

   The fundamental problem or rather the fundamental feature of all
   widely accepted and standardized IP mobility enabling technologies is
   that they are mobile node centric, operating on top of the link layer
   and lacking proper dialogues about the access network characteristics
   with the relevant remote network nodes.  With the emergence of
   multimode mobile terminals and the roaming capability between
   different access technologies, there is a need of sharing the local
   sub-path characteristic information with the remote communicating
   nodes, due to the fact that a wireless access link is most likely the
   bottleneck on the end-to-end communication path and often represent a
   significant portion of the end-to-end delay.  Sharing the local sub-
   path characteristics information with the remote end allows the other
   end to detect and react much faster to the significant changes in the
   end-to-end path properties.  This is expected to reduce or even
   completely avoid possible complications to the IP transport and
   service quality as many applications and the congestion control
   algorithms of the transport layer may often fail to respond fast
   enough to such changes or may react in a wrong way when the path
   characteristics suddenly change.

   Sometimes the bottleneck of the end-to-end communication can be
   elsewhere on the connection path (e.g., in WLAN+ADSL combination the
   ADSL link can be the bottleneck, not the WLAN), and the sub-path
   characteristics may need to be considered in conjunction with mobile
   node's link characteristic itself.

   Currently there is no standardized protocol for such link
   characteristic information delivery.  It is because existing mobility
   protocols do not provide a mechanism to indicate which type of link
   the mobile node is currently attached to.  Therefore, some new
   signaling mechanism is needed in terms of peer-to-peer communication.
   At the same time, the new signaling mechanism to be defined should
   avoid significantly increasing the amount of signaling traffic load,
   especially over wireless links.  Moreover, examining the tradeoff
   between the added delivery and computation load of the new mechanism
   and gained advantage is also an issue that needs serious
   considerations.



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   For the multiple wireless interfaces on the mobile node, there is a
   possibility that the link characteristic information exchange can be
   carried over multiple links simultaneously.  It may be necessary for
   the new signaling mechanism to support multiple connections per
   application as multi-homing scenarios.

   Protocols like Mobile IP [RFC3344][RFC3775], SCTP [RFC2960], DCCP
   [RFC4340], RT(C)P [RFC3550], SIP [RFC3261], etc can be used for
   carrying link characteristic information in their own extensions as
   new options or fields.  It might be more time consuming and complex
   to extend each of these protocols instead of developing a generic
   signaling solution.

2.  Terminology

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].

3.  Assumptions and Observations

   This document has a few fundamental assumptions concerning the
   general networking environment and certain capabilities supported by
   the mobile node and the remote nodes in the case that link
   characteristics delivery functionality is to be deployed.  These
   assumptions are listed as follows:

   o  When multiple wireless interfaces are active on the mobile node,
      link characteristic information exchanges can be carried over
      multiple links simultaneously.  It implies link characteristic
      information delivery to support multiple connections per
      application as multi-homing scenarios.

   o  In case the mobile node's handover is in progress, link
      characteristic information delivery can be exchanged between the
      mobile node and the remote nodes regardless of mobility signaling.

   o  Given link characteristic information from the mobile node, the
      remote sender can adjust its sending rate and other communication
      parameters dynamically within the limitations of the congestion
      control principles [RFC2914] by using the received information as
      a (strong) hint about changes in path properties.

   o  The mobile node has the required capabilities to gather relevant
      characteristics information from its access links and/or access
      network.  Currently, some link characteristic information is in
      use in an proprietary manner.




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   o  When the bottleneck of the end-to-end communication is not in the
      local access network, neither the mobile node nor any of its peers
      have a robust way to determine the problem.  The mobile node may
      be able to gather some end-to-end path characteristics
      information, for example when exchanging mobility related
      signaling with the remote node.  A node is assumed to act
      conservatively with the link characteristic information due to the
      lack of properly measured path characteristic information.

   o  The mobile node invokes link characteristic information
      notification message based on its management policy (e.g.,
      measured information threshold, periodic delivery, event driven,
      etc.) and the required values and parameters are configured on the
      mobile node (and the remote nodes if any).  These policies are
      outside the scope of the IETF.

   o  Mobile nodes, correspondent nodes, mobility management nodes and
      other network entities are not expected to understand or support
      link characteristic information exchange if they do not need this
      particular feature.  Legacy nodes and network entities also fall
      into this category.

4.  Background and Motivations

   In this section we discuss the background and motivation for
   developing link characteristic information delivery mechanism based
   on scenarios.

4.1  Multimode Wireless Terminals

   Recently multimode wireless terminals have become more and more
   common.  For example, most modern mobile terminals are equipped with
   a selection of cellular radios, various IEEE 802.11 family radios,
   Bluetooth radios and IEEE 802.16e Broadband Wireless (called mobile
   WiMAX or WiBro.  It is possible that multiple of these radios are
   simultaneously activated to attach to network instead of just one
   single radio.  In addition, the idea of being always on-line via
   wireless access is not far-fetched anymore.

4.2  Heterogeneous Networks and Terminal Mobility

   Due to the growth of various wireless technologies, different access
   radios overlap, providing mobile users a heterogeneous wireless
   access environment.  Mobile terminals are increasingly expected to be
   able to perform a seamless handover between these different access
   technologies in order to maintain connections and achieve best QoS
   while moving.




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   However, the characteristics and capabilities of these different
   access networks differ considerably, for example in terms of
   available bandwidth, latency, bit-error rates and queue management,
   though in most cases wireless access links remain as the bottleneck
   of the whole communication path.  Therefore, vertical handovers may
   lead to abrupt changes in the link performance.

   Link characteristics may also change considerably when the mobile
   node handovers between links of the same type, due to the different
   traffic loads on the old and the new link.  Furthermore, even when
   the mobile node remains connected to the same link and no handover
   occurs, path characteristics can change abruptly (for example when
   radio conditions change on the local link).

   Another local link related information that could be of use for
   mobile nodes is the utilization of the link or the number of
   potential users on the link.  This kind of information  could help
   mobile nodes or rather the transport protocols to estimate the fair
   share of the link capacity.

   Current IP mobility management protocols do not deliver link related
   information or indications locally to upper layers.  Furthermore,
   there is currently no way of signaling link characteristic related
   information from the mobile node to the remote network nodes.  Some
   upper layer transport protocols and services can adapt to the changed
   connection condition, however reactively only after the network
   capacity misuse (over-utilization or under-utilization) has taken
   place and has possibly been detected by e.g. some upper layer
   congestion control mechanism.  Thus those upper layer protocols,
   applications and services may experience unnecessarily suboptimal
   performance during this period, and often for a relatively long-
   lasting period even after detecting and responding to the misuse.

4.3  Adaptive Application and Services

   Adaptive applications and services can greatly benefit from a
   standardized mechanism that notifies abrupt changes of the link
   characteristics in a proactively manner.  That would allow
   applications and services to adapt to the new connection conditions
   immediately instead of through some generally conservative adapting
   and error handling mechanisms.  After all, these mechanisms are not
   capable of reacting efficiently in the scenarios in question as they
   were not designed to handle the situation discussed in this document.

   One possible example of an adaptive application benefiting from link
   characteristics information would be streaming services for mobile
   vehicles.  Assume a certain mobile vehicle can connect to the network
   using various access technologies -- using macro cellular access when



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   the vehicle is on move and using 802.11 WLAN access when the vehicle
   is not moving and within a hotspot coverage.  The adaptive
   application could then immediately scale the streaming service
   content based on the mobile node's reported link capabilities --
   without waiting for the possible streaming protocol feedback
   mechanism to discover the increased or decreased bandwidth of the
   link.

   There are several scalable-coding algorithms such as SVC (Scalable
   Video Coding), H.264 Scalable Extension, BSAC (Bit Sliced Arithmetic
   Coding), etc. to support a flexible control in terms of audio as well
   as video.  There are, however, some limitations to adjust its ongoing
   traffic volumes from the sender because of lack of dynamic signaling
   from the receiver while changing its link characteristics.

4.4  Traffic Shaping

   In the case that some or all traffic destined to the mobile node goes
   through a mobility anchor node (e.g., the home agent in Mobile IPv6
   bi-directional tunneling mode or previous access router in Mobile IP
   fast handover protocols), it would be useful for the mobility anchor
   node to shape the traffic towards the mobile node according to the
   current link characteristic information provided by the mobile node.
   For example, if the mobile node has announced its current link
   capacity as 64kbps, the mobility anchor node has no point forwarding
   more traffic than the announced data rate to overflow the mobile
   node's access link.  Instead, the mobility anchor node may limit the
   forwarding rate itself or notify the remote peers (e.g. the
   correspondent nodes) to reduce their traffic by some means.

4.5  Network-Initiated Handover

   In some future circumstances, remote network nodes, such as the
   Mobile IP home agent, may wish to suggest the mobile node to handover
   to another access network possibly based on the required service
   quality or certain administrative policies.  With link
   characteristics information delivery mechanism, the remote nodes
   would have more knowledge to be used for such decision makings.

4.6  Signaling Support

   Currently there is no existing standardized or IP mobility solution
   independent mechanism to signal link characteristic information from
   the mobile node to the relevant remote network nodes.  The relevant
   remote network nodes include mobility management nodes (e.g.  Mobile
   IP home agent), correspondent nodes, and any other network nodes that
   may consider link characteristic information useful.




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4.7  Link Information Facility

   To deliver link characteristic information, the mobile node has to
   get its access link characteristics dynamically.  IEEE 802.21 is
   working for the MIHS (Media Independent Handover Services) composed
   of MIES (Media Independent Event Service), MICS (Media Independent
   Command Service) and MIIS (Media Independent Information Service).
   Both MIES and MICS are for the local stack operations.  MIES provides
   event classification, event filtering and event reporting
   corresponding to dynamic changes in link characteristics, link
   status, and link quality.  MICS enables the mobile node to manage and
   control link behavior relevant to handovers and mobility.  In
   addition, implications of link indications are well described by
   [I-D.iab-link-indications].  Consequently, the link information is
   not vague and trivial facilities in IETF.  How the mobile node
   acquires its link characteristics dynamically and accurately is
   beyond the scope of the link characteristic information delivery.

   Even if the link information is delivered end-to-end, the mobile node
   retrieving and sending the information cannot usually have more than
   a good guess of the actual end-to-end path characteristics.  However,
   if the mobile node knows that the local link characteristics have
   changed by some magnitude, it can inform the other end to trigger the
   upper layer congestion control mechanisms to determine the effective
   end-to-end path characteristics.  Similarly the mobile node may base
   some of its path characteristic information reasoning on the known
   bounds of the local link.  For example if the local link is known to
   have 600ms roundtrip time and maximum bandwidth of 48kbps then the
   end-to-end path characteristics cannot be better.  Furthermore, some
   initial measurement results on the end-to-end path can, for example,
   be gathered by monitoring possible mobility related signaling that
   takes place between the end hosts.

4.8  Classification of Explicit Notification Mechanisms

   Based on the past work on explicit notification and communication
   mechanisms, the following types of signaling between the end hosts
   and the network can be identified.  Signaling can be separated into
   in-band and out-of-band mechanisms, based on whether the information
   is piggy-backed along with the transport protocol traffic, or whether
   the signaling is done by means of separate control packets,
   respectively.

   Benefit of using in-band signaling is that the signaling can be
   better assumed to take the same network path as the protocol data.
   Out-of-band mechanisms could take a different path due to different
   policy actions: An IPsec policy might not aggregate the signaling
   protocol to same security association as the data protocol, or a



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   policy-based routing system could select a different path for the
   out-of-band signaling than for the protocol data.  Sometimes a packet
   with unrecognized content can cause the whole IP packet to be dropped
   in the network due to NAT or firewall policy, or because of defective
   router.  When the message is transferred in-band, the loss
   notification usually comes naturally with the protocol's own
   acknowledgment mechanisms.  For an out-of-band mechanism there might
   not be any direct mechanisms to inform about the loss.  Out-of-band
   messages are also generally more susceptible for security problems
   caused by a third party generating malicious messages.  The drawback
   of an in-band mechanism is that a loss due to additional content in
   the IP packet disturbs also the data transfer.

   In the following we discuss and evaluate various in-band and out-of-
   band signaling mechanisms that could potentially be used to deliver
   link characteristic information messages.

   o  In-band message processed by end hosts -- When a message is
      attached to the transport protocol header, only the communication
      end hosts can be assumed to see the message.  Also IPv6 has
      extension headers that are only processed by the end hosts.  The
      routers along the network path are not typically capable of
      processing this kind of message, and if the packet is encrypted
      with IPsec [RFC2401], it is impossible by other nodes than the end
      hosts to read the message.  The benefit of using transport header
      is that it can be expected that the legacy routers and different
      flavour of network middle boxes are not likely to take unexpected
      actions on the packet, such as dropping a packet with unknown
      option.  An example of this kind of notification type is LMDR
      [I-D.swami-tcp-lmdr] that uses a TCP option to allow a mobile end
      host to notify the other end that it has moved.

   o  In-band message processed by some routers -- If a message uses
      some of the reserved bits in the IP header, or is an IP hop-by-hop
      option, routers along the network path are able to process it and
      take appropriate actions.  There can be two types of messages:
      those that are only read by a router, and those that can also be
      altered by the router.  The options that are to be altered by the
      router should not be covered by IPsec [RFC2402].  In case of IPv4
      this means that such an option should be explicitly marked as a
      mutable field for IPsec.  An IPv6 option includes a bit that tells
      IPsec whether the option is mutable or non-mutable.  IPsec does
      not cover the reserved bits in the IP header, either.  Problem
      with the use of IP options is that as of today, network is known
      to drop the majority of packets with unknown IP options.  Some
      explicit notifications are such that they can be of benefit even
      if a single router along the network path supports them.  Explicit
      Congestion Notification [RFC3168] is one such mechanism.



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   o  In-band message processed by all routers -- Some message types
      need to be processed by all routers in order to have effect.  For
      example Quick-Start [I-D.ietf-tsvwg-quickstart] is one such
      mechanism.  This is a hard requirement for any mechanism to be
      used in the Internet, and this kind of schemes are likely to
      remain in limited controlled portions of the network.  These
      messages would also utilize the reserved bits in the IP header or
      IP options, with the same challenges as listed above.  In
      addition, usually the sender must be able to verify that all
      routers have processed the message.  One way to do this is by the
      means of a separate TTL field in the message that is compared to
      the IPv4 TTL or IPv6 hop count.  If the two fields do not give
      matching information about the number of hops on the connection
      path, it can be concluded that there were routers that did not
      process the notification message.  IP tunnels are also a
      considerable challenge to this kind of message, as they can hide
      the inner IP header with the in-band message from the routers.
      Sometimes the TTL field comparison does not reveal the presence of
      such tunnels on the path.

   o  Out-of-band message processed by end hosts -- Sending ICMP
      messages from the receiver to the sender of packet has been a
      traditional way of reporting an error condition or other
      information about the data transfer [RFC0792][RFC2463].  Usually
      the transport header, or a part of it, is included in the message
      to help the receiver of the ICMP message to identify the transport
      connection the ICMP message concerns, and to conduct some
      primitive security screening.

   o  Out-of-band message processed by routers -- Resource Reservation
      Protocol (RSVP) [RFC2205] uses a specific protocol type for QoS
      signaling between the sender and the receiver.  RSVP requires that
      every router processes the messages, so it includes a similar kind
      of TTL-based hop tracking mechanism as Quick-Start does.  In order
      to have out-of-band messages processed at routers, they need to be
      set to monitor the given protocol type inside the IP packets, or
      the IP packets need to use an router alert option to trigger
      further processing at the router.  As with the in-band messages,
      IP tunnels and layer 2 switching system may prevent the signaling
      from working, or cause the signaling to work defectively.  An out-
      of-band message could also be sent from one of the router along
      the network path, of which some of the ICMP error messages are a
      common example.  Taking strong actions based on such signaling is
      not generally encouraged, though, because there would be many
      security issues in the validity and authenticity of such messages.

   To summarize, when designing a new signaling mechanism, a number of



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   issues should be considered based on the experiences from past
   proposals.  To mention two of the important issues, it should be
   established whether some or all nodes along the path are required to
   process the message.  For example, short-cutting the usual congestion
   or rate control mechanisms to get an increased sending rate requires
   a permission from each node along the network path.  Second, it
   should be evaluated whether it is feasible to embed the signaling
   into the protocol data traffic, or whether a separate signaling flow
   is more appropriate, either as embedded to some existing signaling
   such as Mobile IP binding updates, or using an entirely new protocol.
   It is also possible that a combination of different mechanisms is
   used: for example, a mobile host could use an end-to-end method to
   tell the corresponding node about change in its status.  In response,
   corresponding node could trigger a hop-by-hop QoS request in the
   changed environment.

5.  Design Considerations

5.1  Requirements

   This section lists the general requirements for a link or sub-path
   characteristic information delivery  mechanism design.  The link
   characteristic information delivery solution MUST fulfill all the
   'MUST and MUST NOT requirements' listed below:

   R1 Mobility solution independent -- Link characteristic information
      encoding and encapsulation MUST NOT be specific to a certain IP
      mobility solution (such as Mobile IP or HIP [RFC4423]).

   R2 Link characteristic information delivery SHOULD be applicable to
      existing mobility mechanisms (e.g., MIP, SIP, etc.), as well as to
      transport-layer multi-homing mechanisms such as SCTP [RFC2960]

   R3 Transport protocol independent --  The delivery of the link
      characteristic information MUST support multiple transport
      solutions and protocols.

   R4 Link technology independent -- The transport of link
      characteristic information MUST NOT be dependant on some
      particular link technology and link technology specific way of
      carrying information.

   R5 Lightweight delivery mechanism MUST be designed to avoid
      significantly increasing the amount of signaling traffic load,
      especially over wireless links.






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   R6 Applicable when the mobile node is either multi-homed or not -- In
      the multi-homed case, multiple interfaces of the mobile node may
      be activated to send and receive traffic.  The solution MUST be
      able to handle link characteristic information for each link
      separately.  The solution SHOULD also support combining the
      knowledge of all its available access links.

   R7 Applicable when the remote peers are also mobiles -- In this case
      the peers of both sides may support link characteristics
      information delivery, and the solution MUST be able to handle the
      "double jump" situations.

   R8 Applicable when the mobile node is communicating with multiple
      nodes over a single link -- The mobile node SHOULD be able to
      support an algorithm for the link capacity allocation and notify
      each node of its share.

   R9 Link characteristic information encapsulation format MUST be
      applicable to any existing and future link technology -- This
      requirement basically means that the actual contents and
      encapsulation format of link characteristic information MUST be
      extendable to new link types and new link characteristics data.

   R10 Link characteristic information delivery solution MUST NOT
      introduce new security vulnerabilities to the environment it is
      applied to.

   R11 Link characteristic information MUST support middlebox traversal.

   R12 The mobile node SHOULD be able to delegate its link
      characteristic information delivery to other mobility management
      node and undo the delegation when applicable and desired.

   R13 Link Characteristic Information SHOULD be exchanged between the
      mobile and remote node prior the handover, if just possible.  This
      would allow remote node to react proactively and utilize the link
      characteristic information immediately when the handover takes
      place.

   R14 Link Characteristic Information SHOULD follow the congestion
      control principles as described in [RFC2914].

5.2  Out of Scope Issues

   This section lists the issues that are considered as strictly out of
   scope of this problem statement and requirements document.





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   o  Placing any requirements on the cross layer communications about
      link characteristic information.

   o  Unidirectional links.

   o  Non-IP-capable links.

   o  Defining a new mobility framework.

   o  Defining how link characteristic information delivery initiator
      (usually the mobile node) gathers its access link characteristic
      information.

   o  Defining how link characteristic information delivery responder
      (the relevant remote network nodes) actually make use of link
      characteristic information.  For example the remote peer may use
      link characteristic information to optimize the transport layer
      protocols by some specific algorithm particularly tied to the
      transport layer protocols in question.

   o  Defining link capacity assignment algorithm when multiple
      communicating nodes are present on one interface of the mobile
      node.  The assignment algorithms are left for the specific
      applications and protocols that actually utilize link
      characteristic information.

6.  IANA considerations

   This particular document does not define any new name spaces to be
   managed by IANA.  This document does not either reserve any new
   numbers or names under any existing name space managed by IANA.

7.  Security Considerations

   This document provides a problem statement and requirements for the
   link characteristic information delivery when deployed used along
   with IP mobility management.  The link characteristic information
   delivery signaling SHOULD be secured.  Intermediating network nodes
   between the link characteristic information sender and the receiver
   MUST NOT be able to modify the contents of the link characteristic
   information delivery messages.  The strength of the applied security
   mechanism for the link characteristic information delivery MUST NOT
   weaken the existing security solution on the environment where the
   link characteristic information delivery is applied to.

   Potentially, malicious hosts may misuse the link characteristic
   information delivery  mechanism(s) to deliver erroneous link
   characteristic information to the receiving hosts.  However, a



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   malicious hosts who have the capability of fabricating and delivering
   valid looking link characteristic information messages with erroneous
   content are supposed to be easier to launch more serious attacks
   using other mechanisms.

8.  Acknowledgments

   The authors would like to thank Rajeev Koodli and Koshiro Mitsuya for
   their valuable comments and suggestions.  The authors would also like
   to thank Markku Kojo and Hannes Tschofenig for their detailed
   comments, corrections and text contributions.

9.  References

9.1  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC2914]  Floyd, S., "Congestion Control Principles", BCP 41,
              RFC 2914, September 2000.

9.2  Informative References

   [I-D.iab-link-indications]
              Aboba, B., "Architectural Implications of Link
              Indications", draft-iab-link-indications-04 (work in
              progress), December 2005.

   [I-D.ietf-tsvwg-quickstart]
              Floyd, S., Allman, M., Jain, A., and P. Sarolahti, "Quick-
              Start for TCP and IP",
              draft-ietf-tsvwg-quickstart-03 (work in progress),
              October 2006.

   [I-D.swami-tcp-lmdr]
              Swami, Y., Le, K., and W. Eddy, "Lightweight Mobility
              Detection and Response (LMDR) Algorithm for TCP",
              draft-swami-tcp-lmdr-07 (work in progress), February 2006.

   [RFC0792]  Postel, J., "Internet Control Message Protocol", STD 5,
              RFC 792, September 1981.

   [RFC2205]  Braden, B., Zhang, L., Berson, S., Herzog, S., and S.
              Jamin, "Resource ReSerVation Protocol (RSVP) -- Version 1
              Functional Specification", RFC 2205, September 1997.

   [RFC2401]  Kent, S. and R. Atkinson, "Security Architecture for the



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              Internet Protocol", RFC 2401, November 1998.

   [RFC2402]  Kent, S. and R. Atkinson, "IP Authentication Header",
              RFC 2402, November 1998.

   [RFC2463]  Conta, A. and S. Deering, "Internet Control Message
              Protocol (ICMPv6) for the Internet Protocol Version 6
              (IPv6) Specification", RFC 2463, December 1998.

   [RFC2960]  Stewart, R., Xie, Q., Morneault, K., Sharp, C.,
              Schwarzbauer, H., Taylor, T., Rytina, I., Kalla, M.,
              Zhang, L., and V. Paxson, "Stream Control Transmission
              Protocol", RFC 2960, October 2000.

   [RFC3168]  Ramakrishnan, K., Floyd, S., and D. Black, "The Addition
              of Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) to IP",
              RFC 3168, September 2001.

   [RFC3261]  Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, H., Camarillo, G., Johnston,
              A., Peterson, J., Sparks, R., Handley, M., and E.
              Schooler, "SIP: Session Initiation Protocol", RFC 3261,
              June 2002.

   [RFC3344]  Perkins, C., "IP Mobility Support for IPv4", RFC 3344,
              August 2002.

   [RFC3550]  Schulzrinne, H., Casner, S., Frederick, R., and V.
              Jacobson, "RTP: A Transport Protocol for Real-Time
              Applications", STD 64, RFC 3550, July 2003.

   [RFC3775]  Johnson, D., Perkins, C., and J. Arkko, "Mobility Support
              in IPv6", RFC 3775, June 2004.

   [RFC4340]  Kohler, E., Handley, M., and S. Floyd, "Datagram
              Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP)", RFC 4340, March 2006.

   [RFC4423]  Moskowitz, R. and P. Nikander, "Host Identity Protocol
              (HIP) Architecture", RFC 4423, May 2006.













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Authors' Addresses

   Jouni Korhonen
   TeliaSonera Corporation.
   P.O.Box 970
   FI-00051 Sonera
   FINLAND

   Phone: +358 40 534 4455
   Email: jouni.korhonen@teliasonera.com


   Soohong Daniel Park
   Mobile Convergence Laboratory, SAMSUNG Electronics.
   416 Maetan-3dong, Yeongtong-gu
   Suwon, Gyeonggi-do  443-742
   KOREA

   Phone: +82 31 200 4508
   Email: soohong.park@samsung.com


   Ji Zhang
   Communications Research Group, University of York.
   Heslington
   York  YO10 5DD
   United Kingdom

   Phone: +44 1904 432310
   Email: jz105@ohm.york.ac.uk


   Cheulju Hwang
   Mobile Convergence Laboratory, SAMSUNG Electronics.
   416 Maetan-3dong, Yeongtong-gu
   Suwon, Gyeonggi-do  443-742
   KOREA

   Phone: +82 31 200 4508
   Email: cheolju.hwang@samsung.com











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   Pasi Sarolahti
   Nokia Research Center
   P.O.Box 407
   Helsinki  FI-00045
   FINLAND

   Phone: +358 50 4876607
   Email: pasi.sarolahti@iki.fi











































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Acknowledgment

   Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
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