Self-adaptable IP Connectivity Control in Carrier Grade Mobile Operator Networks

Abstract

The current trend in operator networks is towards the deployment of high capacity radio technologies such as LTE accommodating a high number of devices and their data traffic. However, the current network architecture was designed for a lower level of communication in which scalability was achieved through uniform operator control. Connectivity for each mobile device was handled in the same manner, no matter of its characteristics, network location or resources required resulting in a high overhead in supporting a large part of the subscribers. This paper introduces a new self-adaptation concept realized as a subscriber oriented management layer enabling the customization of the control procedures and resources reserved to the individual communication requirements for each device. The concept is exemplified for access network selection and core network path adaptation use cases, adapted for the 3GPP Evolved Packet Core architecture and evaluated through a testbed realization based on the Fraunhofer FOKUS OpenEPC toolkit.