Mobile IP
IETF-standard Internet protocol for allowing a mobile device to move from one network to another without changing its IP address

Mobile IP (or MIP) is an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard communications protocol that is designed to allow mobile device users to move from one network to another while maintaining a permanent IP address. Mobile IP for IPv4 is described in RFC 5944, and extensions are defined in RFC 4721. Mobile IPv6, the IP mobility implementation for the next generation of the Internet Protocol, IPv6, is described in RFC 6275.
Introduction
The Mobile IP allows for location-independent routing of IP datagrams on the Internet. Each mobile node is identified by its home address disregarding its current location in the Internet. While away from its home network, a mobile node is associated with a care-of address which identifies its current location and its home address is associated with the local endpoint of a tunnel to its home agent. Mobile IP specifies how a mobile node registers with its home agent and how the home agent routes datagrams to the mobile node through the tunnel.
Applications
In many applications (e.g., VPN, VoIP), sudden changes in network connectivity and IP address can cause problems. Mobile IP was designed to support seamless and continuous Internet connectivity.
Mobile IP is most often found in wired and wireless environments where users need to carry their mobile devices across multiple LAN subnets.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Mobile IP” is iETF-standard Internet protocol for allowing a mobile device to move from one network to another without changing its IP address. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Mobile, IETF-standard and Internet, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “iETF-standard Internet protocol for allowing a mobile device to move from one network to another without changing its IP address” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 2, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q205936. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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- Expand the search: follow Mobile IP primary sources, Mobile IP archive and Mobile research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Mobile IP” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.