Managing mobility of wireless devices in distributed communication networks

Abstract

The present invention provides a method and an apparatus for managing mobility of a wireless communication device across a first and a second access node in a common administrational area of a network. The method comprises using the first access node to assign a temporary identification to the wireless communication device, causing the second access node to identify the first access node from which the temporary identification originates and hiding the mobility of the wireless communication device from the network when routing traffic to a serving access node of the first and second access nodes based on the identified first access node and the temporary identification. In one embodiment, use of software at these access nodes may enable deploying of a centralized logical functionality instead of centralized physical nodes. This software may provide mobility management of one or more wireless communication devices across a group of radio access nodes including base stations or Node Bs in a multi-vendor environment and a non-supplier specific. Through such decentralization, for example, network vendors may provide mobility management with insignificant impact on existing standards and interchangeability of network elements of a network, such as an Internet protocol (IP) network.