The present invention provides a method and an apparatus for managing
mobility of a wireless communication device across a first and a second
access node in a common administrational area of a network. The method
comprises using the first access node to assign a temporary
identification to the wireless communication device, causing the second
access node to identify the first access node from which the temporary
identification originates and hiding the mobility of the wireless
communication device from the network when routing traffic to a serving
access node of the first and second access nodes based on the identified
first access node and the temporary identification. In one embodiment,
use of software at these access nodes may enable deploying of a
centralized logical functionality instead of centralized physical nodes.
This software may provide mobility management of one or more wireless
communication devices across a group of radio access nodes including base
stations or Node Bs in a multi-vendor environment and a non-supplier
specific. Through such decentralization, for example, network vendors may
provide mobility management with insignificant impact on existing
standards and interchangeability of network elements of a network, such
as an Internet protocol (IP) network.