RFC 2009 (rfc2009) - Page 3 of 27

GPS-Based Addressing and Routing

RFC 2009            GPS-Based Addressing and Routing       November 1996


     o     Providing contiguous information services for mobile users
           when information depends on the user's location. In
           particular providing location dependent book-marks, which
           provides the user with any important information which
           happens to be local (within a certain range) possibly
           including other mobile servers.

   The solutions which we present are flexible (scalable) in terms of
   the target accuracy of the GPS. We also discuss cases when GPS cannot
   be used (like inside buildings).

   The main challenge is to integrate the concept of physical location
   into the current design of the Internet which relies on logical
   addressing.  We see the following general families of solutions:

      a) Unicast IP routing extended to deal with GPS addresses

      b) GPS-Multicast solution

      c) Application Layer Solution using extended DNS

   The first two solutions are presented in this memo. We only sketch
   the third solution.

1b. General Architecture

   We will assume a general cellular architecture with base stations
   called Mobile Support Stations (MSS). We will consider a wide variety
   of cells, including outdoor and indoor cells. We will discuss both
   cases when the mobile client has a GPS card on his machine and cases
   when the GPS card does not work (i.e. - inside buildings).

   We will assume that each MSS covers a cell with a well defined range
   specified as a polygon of spatial coordinates and that the MSS is
   aware of its own range.

1c. Scenarios of Usage and Interface Issues

   Below, we list some possible scenarios of usage for the geographic
   messaging.

   Consider an example situation, of an area of land near a river.
   During a severe rain storm, the local authorities may wish to send a
   flood warning to all people living within a hundred meters of the
   river.






Imielinski & Navas            Experimental