1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to mobile communication devices and, more particularly, the present invention relates to mobile terminals communicating in a mobile IP network.
2. Related Art
The Internet, as we know it today, began as a joint project between the Department of Defense's (DoD's) Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) and the United Kingdom's National Physics Lab (NPL) during the height of the Cold War. When planning started in 1967, the project was conceived to distribute communications and data through a dispersed network of highly interconnected network nodes with high redundancy. A decision was made, based on research at the NPL, to move data through the network using a technique called “message switching”, or packet switching as it is called today. In order to exchange data, each node was assigned a unique address in relation to the addresses assigned to all other nodes. The address scheme devised was a 32-bit number comprising a network part and a host (network node) part. By 1971, 15 nodes, mostly at universities, were connected to the ARPA network (ARPANET). They were linked for time sharing to support a variety of remote terminals and allowed data transfers between distant computers.
The early 1970s produced a number of products that would effect the development of the ARPANET. The Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), funded by Xerox Corporation, developed a graphical user interface (GUI), a computer pointing device called a mouse, and most importantly, an Ethernet protocol, for inter-connecting computers that allowed users to send and receive electronic mail and share files.
At the same time that ARPANET was being develop for institutional use, the first personal computer was introduced by Altair in 1975. Sold as a kit, it was an instant success with computer enthusiast but its sales were limited due to the technical skill required to assemble the kit. It did, however, confirm that a market existed for a personal computer. Thus, in 1981, International Business Machines (IBM) introduced the Personal Computer (PC) which became the defacto industry standard. The IBM PC was an open architecture machine, meaning IBM published all technical details of the PC. This fact allowed low cost providers to produce PC “clones” so consumers were able to purchase personal computers at affordable prices. Low cost dial-up modems allowed PC users to download files from bulletin boards.
By the late 1980s, the ARPANET was almost 20 years old. The DoD split the ARPANET into two distinct parts for specific uses. One part was reserved for military sites (known as MILNET), while the second part of the ARPANET was for civilian use. Management of the ARPANET was turned over to the National Science Foundation (NSF) with NSF regional networks forming the backbone of the re-named Internet. Commercial Internet Service Providers (ISPs) began offering Internet Access Points (APs) through which large numbers of PC users began accessing the Internet. These PCs were desktop machines whose location was not likely to change, thus creating a home network for ISPs.
As technology evolved, smaller, more powerful laptop PCs became available. Their size released them from the desktop and the office. Sales, marketing, and technical personnel could take the laptop PCs on the road while maintaining contact with the office through remote applications such as e-mail and file transfers. These laptop PCs created mobile users that wanted to access the Internet while moving between networks, thereby causing a transition from a centralized system to a distributed system. Moreover, advances in wireless technology made wireless networking possible. Using a mobile IP protocol, laptop PCs, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and mobile phones equipped for web browsing could access the Internet. Using either a static or dynamic mobile IP address assigned by their home networks, these mobile users or mobile terminals accessed the Internet from any available Internet access point.
Along these lines, mobile and simple IP standards have evolved to facilitate mobility for wireline and wireless coupled user terminals (hereinafter, “mobile terminals”). When a mobile terminal changes its access point from its home network to a visited (foreign) network, it does not change its mobile IP address. Home agents (HA) are special servers responsible for routing data packets to absent mobile terminals. The HA is informed of the absent mobile terminal's location when the mobile terminal registers with the foreign network. The server on the foreign network, the foreign agent (FA), provides its IP address (care-of address) to the HA during mobile terminal registration. After registration, the FA is responsible for routing data packets between the mobile terminal and home network via the HA.
Within the world of wireless communications, differing billing rates and services are often offered according to time of day, quality of service and guaranteed throughput rates. For example, some services are offered in which a certain type of continuous-bit-rate data, so called streaming data, is provided at a specified price. For example, there are subscription based music and video services that are readily available. There are also subscription based stock market services and other services in which data is provided for a fee. While such application specific services often are offered at a flat rate, data rate guarantees result in differing transmission rates. Moreover, as the different technologies evolve, the access technology that is utilized to gain access to various application servers is also rate dependent. For example, if an access technology includes a cellular network to provide access to the Internet, then the access technology on its own provides a use based rate. Moreover, if certain quality of service or throughput rates are expected or guaranteed for the access, then different rates may apply according to the throughput rate which is requested or used. On the other hand, if a wireless local area network is used to provide access to a data packet network, such as the Internet, then there may be no service fees associated therewith aside from, perhaps, monthly fees.
One problem that exists for a home agent in a mobile IP or in a simple IP network is that home agents do not currently know in real time either a device type or access technology being used to establish a communication link. Because home agents do not know either the device type or access technology, home agents are not able to properly determine an appropriate billing rate, whether access should be allowed or disallowed, and other control related considerations. Accordingly, a need exists for enabling a home agent to determine device type and access technology.