By unleashing a vast number of Internet protocol (IP) addresses, it was conjectured that Internet protocol version 6 (IPv6) would “connect the world.” It would also add extra ease of configuration, through its embedded functions, to support mobility, security, and device discovery.

This book focuses on the potential support for mobility of mobile IPv6, but does not explain why the adoption, thus far, has been so much smaller than expected. This could have been accomplished by comparing the mobile IPv6 capabilities with other ways of implementation. The term mobility is more common in the context of data traffic, using IP over the Internet, than in the context of wireless networks and transport networks. After introducing the basics of the IPv6 protocol (128-bit addresses and 40-byte headers), Part 1 gives an introduction to the neighbor discovery protocol (NDP), stateless auto configuration, and IPv6 security (IPsec).

Part 2 is an impressive analysis of the principles behind the mobile IPv6 protocol, binding cache management, return routability, packet handling and encapsulation, home agent discovery, and the NEMO model. This section, which constitutes the core of the book, builds largely on Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) documents, and adds structure to them.

Part 3 is on advanced mobility protocols with especially fast handovers between data-centric mobile nodes, context transfers, and neighborhood prefix discovery.

Part 4 covers the role of mobile IPv6 in three cases: code division multiple access packet data networks, with some remarks on session initiation protocol (SIP) and the IP multimedia subsystem; enterprise virtual private networks; and fast handover in a wireless local network.

It is unfortunate for students that use cases do not appear earlier than page 245. Had the authors introduced them earlier, readers could progressively see the role and the advantages of mobile IPv6 in an implementation context. Also, no comparison is made to other designs with the same functions, which could have built on more widely known protocols.

Part 5 deals with emerging topics in IP mobility, such as voice over IP, seamless handovers (with an interesting performance study), location privacy (hiding the home address), and route optimization using return routability. The book includes a list of figures, a list of tables, a very short glossary, and a good index.

This book is a brilliant collection of ideas, and is evidence of deep architectural skills. But for this same reason, I fear that the didactic approach desired by some readers, students, and implementation engineers may not be present. The main audience may be researchers working on the subject and wanting to have a reference compilation of prior art with discussion. Another set of users may be systems architects having to adopt, adapt, or evolve IPv6 subsystems in data-centric IP networks.