The purpose of host mobility support is to provide continuous Internet
access to mobile hosts. In contrast to host mobility support, network
mobility support is concerned with situations where an entire network
changes its point of attachment to the Internet and thus its
reachability in the topology. We shall refer to such a network as a
mobile network (MONET).


Network mobility can occur in many different scenarios, including
networks of sensors deployed in trains, busses, boats, planes, and
Personal Area Networks (PANs). Sensors are typically used to collect
information in the mobile network (air pressure, temperature, ...) and
may need to communicate this information not only to a server on board
the mobile network, but also to servers in the Internet.  Meanwhile, a
number of Internet appliances deployed in the mobile network are used
to collect traffic and navigation data from the Internet. In addition,
the mobile network deployed in a train or a bus may also provide
Internet connectivity to the passengers that may wish to connect their
mobile phone, laptop or the PAN they carry on themselves.


The purpose of network mobility support is to provide continuous
Internet access to all nodes located in the mobile network for
different types of mobile network. The scenarios outlined above would
significantly affect the problem definition and raise a number of new
addressing, routing, and security issues that have not yet been
considered by traditional work on mobility support, as this BOF will
try to prove. Several problems will be considering during this BOF,
for instance:


 -  A PAN scenario would, in most cases, imply a small number of
    devices, on a single subnet and likely to be owned by a single
    entity. On the other hand, mobile networks on a bus represent a
    different set of problems. Such instance may in some cases contain
    severals subnets and a potentially large number of nodes belonging
    to distinct entities. Several PANs may also exist, connected to
    one or more Mobile Routers (MRs) on the bus, forming nested mobile
    networks with several subnets. This questions how different levels
    of mobility could be handled, how lower levels could be granted
    access to the Internet via the top-level mobile network, and how
    multiple dog-leg routing could be avoided.


 -  Another dimension of the problem can be seen when considering the
    speed of mobility. A mobile network on a bus or a train is likely
    to experience frequent IP handovers, when compared with a mobile
    network on a plane, connected by satellite to a ground
    station. The frequency of movement will add certain restrictions
    on decisions related to allocating addresses to a mobile network,
    as well as, controlling the frequency of updates.


 -  The number of nodes within a mobile network will certainly affect
    the mobility management scheme (e.g. the number of updates to be
    sent when MR(s) change their point of attachment within the
    topology), and whether they should be aggregated (sent by a single
    entity on behalf of the network) or not.


The pre-BOF meeting held at 52th IETF Salt Lake City shown that there
is a strong interest in the IETF community to work on such issues. It
is therefore the object of this BOF to define a work context that
describes the goal we want to achieve and limits the scope of our
study. We must then identify what constraints limit the implementation
and the deployment of a potentially and ideally good solution, and
what requirements solutions must comply to.


The work on network mobility support may span and monitor progress and
place requirements on other working groups, including, but not limited
to: IPv6, IPSec, MobileIP, PANA, AAA, and possibly SeaMoby and
MANET WGs.