Application Connectivity Problems

The use of traditional wire-based protocols over wireless networks introduces problems with maintaining connections between the user's appliance and the application residing on a server. TCP/IP, for example, provides very reliable connections over wired networks such as ethernet and token ring. Over wireless networks, however, TCP/IP is susceptible to losing connections, especially when the appliance is operating in an area with marginal wireless network coverage.

A solution to this problem is to use wireless middleware software, which provides intermediate communications between the end user devices and the application software located on a host or server. The middleware enables highly efficient and reliable communications over the wireless network, while maintaining appropriate connections to application software and databases on the server/host via the more reliable wired LAN.

The mobile nature of wireless networks can offer addressing problems as well. Most networks require the IP address loaded in the user's appliance to be within a specific address range to maintain proper connections with applications. When a user roams from one IP subnet to another with a wireless appliance, the appliance and the application may lose the capability to connect with each other. As a result, implementers should consider the use of MobileIP as a means of maintaining connectivity while traversing different IP domains.