Modern technology allows one to use the Internet or a cellular phone almost anywhere. The structure behind this connectivity is usually hierarchical; that is, mobile users connect to base stations. Several base stations are grouped and controlled by a base station controller (BSC), and several BSCs are controlled by a mobile switching center (MSC). When users move around (roaming), the system has to track where they are in order to connect to them when they are called. To strike a balance between the costs of maintaining an exact location all the time, and the delays of locating a user only when the need arises, the system usually only tracks users to their BSCs. When a user is called, the BSC pages all of the base stations beneath it to locate the user.

When a roaming computing device connects to the Internet, it has the same problem. Since the de facto internetworking protocol is the Internet protocol (IP), this paper proposes a generic IP paging architecture and protocol. Recognizing the dominance of Wi-Fi (based on the IEEE 802.11 standard), this paper also considers the integration of IEEE 802.11, especially the power saving mode, into the generic IP paging architecture. Signaling cost analysis is also provided.

Even if it does not increase the signaling cost, the proposed IP paging scheme adds some complexities to the Internet Engineering Task Force’s (IETF’s) standard mobile IP (MIP) protocol. One may doubt the wisdom of it. After all, computers are quite different from cellular phones. In many computer applications, the mobile user has to connect to a server first. The server is usually well known, so there is no need to track the server. By requesting to connect to the server, the client (the mobile user) then announces its location automatically. Paging may be needed in a peer-to-peer (P2P) application. Even in a P2P application, however, users have to first inform the server that they are online. This paper is long (22 pages), and the English is not that smooth. Therefore, it may take time and patience to read it.