Method and apparatus for tunneling service of explicit multicast in mobile IP network

1. A method of multicast tunneling service on a mobile IP network; comprising:

receiving a multicast packet from a source to be sent to a plurality of mobile terminals, wherein the plurality of mobile terminals include at least one of a first mobile group using a co-located care of address (CL COA) and a second mobile group using a foreign agent COA, and wherein terminals of the first mobile group are in data communication with a home agent and terminals of the second mobile group are in data communication with a foreign agent;

modifying, at the home agent, the received multicast packet such that the modified multicast packet is transmitted to the at least one of the first and second mobile groups;

transmitting the modified multicast packet to a transit node;

duplicating, at the transit node and/or the foreign agent, the modified multicast packet as many times as the number of the first mobile group terminals and/or the number of the second mobile group terminals, respectively; and

transmitting each of the duplicated multicast packets to a respective mobile terminal.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the modifying comprises:

recognizing destination addresses of the terminals of the first mobile group based on the received multicast packet;

generating a multicast tunnel header having a destination address comprising an address list of the first mobile group terminals; and

encapsulating the received multicast packet with the generated multicast tunnel header.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the multicast tunnel header includes a home agent address field, a link local multicast address field, and a mobile terminal COA field storing the COAs of the first mobile group terminals.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the modifying comprises:

recognizing destination addresses of the terminals of the second mobile group based on the received multicast packet;

generating a first multicast tunnel header having a destination address comprising an address list of the second mobile group terminals;

first encapsulating the received multicast packet with the first multicast tunnel header;

generating a second multicast tunnel header having a destination address comprising an address list of foreign agent COAs for the second mobile group terminals; and

second encapsulating the first encapsulated multicast packet with the second multicast tunnel header.

5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising:

transmitting the second encapsulated multicast packet to the foreign agent; and

removing, at the foreign agent, the second multicast tunnel header from the second encapsulated multicast packet.

6. The method of claim 4 , wherein the first multicast tunnel header includes a home agent address field, a link local multicast address field, and a home network address list field for the second mobile group terminals.

7. The method of claim 4 , wherein the second multicast tunnel header includes a home agent address field, a link local multicast address field, and a foreign agent COA list field.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising modifying destination addresses of each of the duplicated multicast packets such that each mobile terminal does not repeatedly receive the same multicast packet.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the home agent does not duplicate the received multicast packet as many times as the number of the terminals of the at least one of the first and second mobile groups.

10. An apparatus for multicast tunneling service on a mobile IP network, comprising:

a home agent configured to receive a multicast packet from a source to be sent to a plurality of mobile terminals, wherein the plurality of mobile terminals include at least one of a first mobile group using a co-located care of address (CL COA) and a second mobile group using a foreign agent COA, and wherein terminals of the first mobile group are in data communication with the home agent and terminals of the second mobile group are in data communication with a foreign agent, wherein the home agent is further configured to modify the received multicast packet such that the modified multicast packet is transmitted to the at least one of the first and second mobile groups; and

a transit node being in data communication with at least one of the home agent and the foreign agent,

wherein the transit node and/or the foreign agent are (is) configured to duplicate the multicast packet as many times as the number of the first mobile group terminals and/or the number of the second mobile group terminals, respectively and to transmit each of the duplicated multicast packets to a respective mobile terminal.

11. The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein the home agent is further configured to (i) recognize destination addresses of the terminals of the first mobile group based on the received multicast packet, (ii) generate a multicast tunnel header having a destination address comprising an address list of the first mobile group terminals and (iii) encapsulate the received multicast packet with the generated multicast tunnel header.

12. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the multicast tunnel header includes a home agent address field, a link local multicast address field, and a mobile terminal COA field storing the COAs of the first mobile group terminals.

13. The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein the home agent is further configured to (i) recognize destination addresses of the terminals of the second mobile group based on the received multicast packet, (ii) generate a first multicast tunnel header having a destination address comprising an address list of the second mobile group terminals, (iii) first encapsulate the received multicast packet with the first multicast tunnel header, iv) generate a second multicast tunnel header having a destination address comprising an address list of foreign agent COAs for the second mobile group terminals and v) second encapsulate the first encapsulated multicast packet with the second multicast tunnel header.

14. The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the foreign agent is configured to remove the second multicast tunnel header from the second encapsulated multicast packet and to transmit the second encapsulated multicast packet to each of the second mobile group terminals.

15. The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein each of the plurality of mobile terminals includes one of the following: a portable computer, a mobile phone and other portable communication devices.