Abstract
The Recent decades have witnessed intensive efforts from operators to implement methods enabling better control over network utilization, service usage, and service monetization. Nevertheless, they report significant growth in Diameter signaling traffic, especially policy management signaling traffic. More specifically, operators offering long term evolution (LTE) data-only services and planning for a massive introduction of voice over LTE (VoLTE) and voice over WiFi (VoWiFi) services need to tackle the enormous growth in Diameter signaling traffic. The biggest challenge for those operators is to find an appropriate solution, scalable enough to handle the unpredictable growth of Diameter signaling traffic; as the VoLTE and VoWiFi services will reshape the landscape of LTE policies. Throughout this paper, we propose a network function virtualization (NFV) based model, mature enough to tackle the challenges of those operators planning to launch VoLTE and VoWiFi, without impacting existing services and without jeopardizing current revenues. In our approach we first used standard VoLTE and VoWiFi message flow and referenced users’ behavior; then we considered NFV architecture characteristics. We finally referred to the latest experiments and test results related to NFV maturity cycle.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Sandvine, Network Policy Control and the Migration to LTE. Tech. rep., Sandvine (2013). https://www.sandvine.com/downloads/general/whitepapers/network-policy-control-and-the-migration-to-lte.
Aijaz, A., Aghvami, H., & Amani, M. (2013). Wireless communications. IEEE, 20(2), 104. doi:10.1109/MWC.2013.6507401.
Oracle. (2013). LTE diameter signaling index (2nd ed.). Tech. rep., Oracle. http://www.oracle.com/us/industries/communications/lte-diameter-signaling-index-wp-2100662.
Sandvine, Distributed Decisions in Network Policy Control. Tech. rep., Sandvine (2013). https://www.sandvine.com/downloads/general/whitepapers/distributed-decisions-in-network-policy-control.
Cisco, New VoLTE Policy management architecture: Improve subscriber experience and lower cost of growth. Tech. Rep. C11 - 732158 - 0, Cisco (2015). https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/wireless/quantum-policy-suite-mobile/white-paper-c11-732158
Rankin, J., Costaiche, A., Zeto, J., & O’Neil, K. (2014). Validating VoLTE: A definitive guide to succssful deployments (2nd ed.). Ixia, USA. https://www.ixiacom.com/sites/default/files/resources/brochure/volte-book-second-edition-new
Joss, G., & Tim, H. (2014). Smartphone forecasts and assumptions: 2007–2020. Tech. rep., GSMA Intelligence. https://gsmaintelligence.com/research/?file=b968f16bba93c110db059a4fabeb43b1&download
Hall, B., Khan, B. (2003). Adoption of new technology. Tech. Rep. w9730, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA. http://www.nber.org/papers/w9730
GSMA Intelligence, Data for Operators Ranking connections, excluding cellular M2M, Total. Tech. rep., GSMA Intelligence (Q4 2020). https://gsmaintelligence.com//operators/ranking/
GSMA Intelligence, Data for Operators Ranking connections, excluding cellular M2M, 4G. Tech. rep., GSMA Intelligence (Q2 2015). https://gsmaintelligence.com//operators/ranking/
3GPP, Policy and charging control signalling flows and Quality of Service (QoS) parameter mapping. TS 29.213 V13.1.0, 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) (2015). http://www.3gpp.org/DynaReport/29213.htm
Americas, G., Bringing Network Function Virtualization to LTE. Tech. rep., 4G Americas (2014). http://www.4gamericas.org/files/1014/1653/1309/4G_Americas_-_NFV_to_LTE_-_November_2014_-_FINAL
Dimitris, Mavrakis. (2015). MWC 2015: NFV gets real. Tech. Rep. TE0006-001035, Ovum. https://www.ovumkc.com/Products/Telecoms/Intelligent-Networks/MWC-2015-NFV-gets-real/Ovum-view.
Intel, Brocade, Cyan, R. Hat, Telefonica, End to End Network Function Virtualization Architecture Instantiation. Tech. rep., Intel (2015). http://www.tid.es/sites/526e527928a32d6a7400007f/assets/54f05bc91146dd1f1c000ea3/EndtoEndNFVArchitectureFinal.PDF.
Huang, Z., Ma, R., Li, J., Chang, Z., & Guan, H. (2012). In 2012 IEEE International Conference on cluster computing (CLUSTER) (pp. 459–467). doi:10.1109/CLUSTER.2012.28.
Ben, S., Said, H., Sama, M., Guillouard, K., Suciu, L., Simon, G., Lagrange, X., & Bonnin, J. M. (2013). In 2013 IEEE 2nd international conference on cloud networking (CloudNet) (pp. 205–209). doi:10.1109/CloudNet.2013.6710579.
Ouyang, Y., & Fallah, M. H. (2012). In Research, practice, and educational advancements in telecommunications and networking. IGI Global. http://www.igi-global.com/chapter/analysis-traffic-throughput-umts-packet/62760.
3GPP, IP multimedia call control protocol based on Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and Session Description Protocol (SDP); Stage 3. TS 24.229 V13.0.0, 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) (2015). http://www.3gpp.org/DynaReport/24229.htm.
3GPP, General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) enhancements for Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN) access. TS 23.401 V13.0.0, 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) (2014). http://www.3gpp.org/DynaReport/23401.htm.
3GPP, Policy and charging control architecture. TS 23.203 V13.3.0, 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) (2015). http://www.3gpp.org/DynaReport/23203.htm.
3GPP, IP Multimedia (IM) Subsystem Cx and Dx Interfaces; Signalling flows and message contents. TS 29.228 V12.0.0, 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) (2013). http://www.3gpp.org/DynaReport/29228.htm.
3GPP, Architecture enhancements for non-3gpp accesses. TS 23.402 V13.4.0, 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) (2015). http://www.3gpp.org/DynaReport/23402.htm.
Coleago, Will wi-fi relieve congestion on cellular networks? Tech. rep., GSMA Intelligence (2014). http://www.gsma.com/spectrum/.
GSMA Intelligence, % connections, excluding cellular M2M, Prepaid, World. Tech. rep., GSMA Intelligence (2015). https://gsmaintelligence.com/metrics/.
3GPP, Telecommunication management; Charging management; Diameter charging applications. TS 32.299 V13.0.0, 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) (2015). http://www.3gpp.org/DynaReport/32299.htm.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Appendix: Model description
Appendix: Model description
Functions to model the subscribers growth:
The \(N_v (x)\) is the function presenting the evolution of the number of VoLTE users:
where \(S_{max}, x_0\) and \(\lambda _1\) are respectively the maximum number of subscribers, the inflection year (convexity change in subscriber forecast), and the slope parameter for subscribers forecast.
The \(N_d (x)\) is the function presenting the evolution of the number of data-only subscribers:
where \(n_1\) and \(n_2\) are calculated based on the initial and target values of LTE data-only subscriber’s growth. \(\sigma _1\), \(\sigma _2\), are the standard deviation, and \(\mu _1\), \(\mu _2\) are the the means.
In our use case, \(S_{max} = 20(Millions), x_0\) = 3(years), \(\lambda _1\)= 2.5, \(n_1\) = 25, \(n_2\) = 8, \(\sigma _1\) = 2, \(\sigma _2\) = 1.6, \(\mu _1\)= 6, and \(\mu _2= -0.1\).
Diameter transactions calculation
The average number of Diameter signaling transactions per second during the busy hour at year x, \(S_{total} (x)\), generated by LTE subscribers (VoLTE, VoWiFi and LTE data-only) was calculated based on the sum of signaling Diameter transactions generated by the activities associated to the below functions \(A_i\), with \(1 \le i \le 10\), where the first element of the function \((A_{i1})\) represents the number of transactions related to the Internet default bearer, the second \((A_{i2})\) corresponds to the number of transactions pertaining to VoLTE and VoWiFi default bearer. The third \((A_{i3})\) is association with the number of VoLTE and VoWiFi dedicated bearer transactions.The parameters used of those functions are described in Tables 2, 3, 4, and 5.
\(A_1(x)\): number of Diameter transactions to establish default bearers (Internet and VoLTE/VoWiFi):
\(A_2(x)\): number of Diameter transactions to authenticate an LTE subscriber (VoLTE and LTE data-only):
\(A_3(x)\): number of transactions to download the spending limit report from online charging system:
\(A_4(x)\): number of Diameter transactions to charge LTE data services:
\(A_5(x)\): number of Diameter transactions to register a VoLTE or VoWiFi subscriber in IMS:
\(A_6(x)\): number of Diameter transactions to release a default bearer (VoLTE or VoWiFi and Internet):
\(A_7(x)\): number of Diameter transactions to de-register a VoLTE or a VoWiFi subscriber from IMS:
\(A_8(x)\): number of Diameter transactions to establish and release dedicated bearer:
\(A_9(x)\): number of Diameter transactions to charge a prepaid VoLTE or VoWiFi call:
\(A_{10}(x)\): number of Diameter transactions to authenticate a VoWiFi subscriber:
Calculation of the total Diameter signaling transactions moved to the NFV
The average number of Diameter transactions per second during busy hour at year x moved to our virtualized architecture, \(S_{NFV}(x)\), is calculated by adding an NFV weighting factor \(\delta _{ij}\) to the Eq. (3):
The matrix \([\delta ]\) is the matrix grouping the entire weighting factors, defined as below:
We calculated the elements \(\delta _{ij}\) (\(1 \le i \le 10\) and \(1 \le j \le 3\)) of the matrix \([\delta ]\) using the following rules:
\(\delta _{ij} = 1\), when: 100 % of transactions migrated to the virtualized model when the activities happen into the model.
\(\delta _{ij} = 0.5\), when: 50 % of transactions migrated to the virtualized model when the activities occur between two elements one of them in our model.
\(\delta _{ij} = 0.5\), when: 0 % of transactions migrated to our virtualized model if the activities occur between elements out of our model.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jouihri, Y., Guennoun, Z., Chagh, Y. et al. Towards successful VoLTE and VoWiFi deployment: network function virtualization solutions’ benefits and challenges. Telecommun Syst 64, 467–478 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11235-016-0186-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11235-016-0186-y