Charles E. Perkins When a mobile node moves to a new point of attachment in the Internet, relying on router advertisements may be insufficient to insure adequate performance of time-critical applications running on the mobile node. In many cases, other indications are available to trigger handover of the mobile node to a new point of attachment, at a new access router. The mobile node and the access router may then be able to take steps, in addition to those specified for Mobile IPv6, to reduce the time during which the mobile node is effectively disconnected from the Internet. This specification defines the fast handover problem and outlines a proposed solution to the problem.