METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR THE UTILIZATION OF MULTIPLE UPLINKS IN REVERSE TUNNELING

摘要

Methods and apparatus for improving tunneling techniques and reducing packet loss in mobile communications systems are described. A mobile node (14) establishes multiple tunnels (725), representing downlinks, from the mobile node (14) perspective. The different downlink tunnels are through different access nodes (607) but terminate at the same home agent (632). Tunnels representing uplinks and downlinks are managed independently. Thus, each of the uplink and downlink tunnels can have different lifetimes and can be created/removed independently allowing for flexibility in handoff operations.