Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Towards the Functional Enhancement of 3GPP Networks with Reconfiguration Capacities

  • Published:
Wireless Personal Communications Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Over the last decade, several wireless access systems, such as broadband WLAN and WMAN (e.g., IEEE 802.11 and 802.16), broadcast systems (e.g., DAB, DVB-T) and short-range connectivity systems (e.g., Bluetooth, UWB), have emerged to complement existing second (2G) and third (3G) generation cellular systems. The common objective is to migrate to a flexible connectivity platform that will support the disparate requirements of mobile applications in the next-generation era, commonly referred to as 4G. To achieve a versatile multi-radio and multi-protocol access from mobile devices of limited resources in 4G, the original software-radio concept has evolved into across-the-board reconfiguration, which includes not only radio-specific functionalities but supports also the dynamic modification of the entire protocol stack. The present article clarifies the fundamental aspects of reconfiguration and points out the shortcomings of current standards for describing the reconfiguration capabilities (i.e., metadata about the feasible alternative configurations) of mobile network elements. An object-oriented model for reconfiguration metadata is introduced and isomorphically mapped to an RDF vocabulary, which is used to describe reconfigurable protocol stacks as defined for UMTS/WLAN mobile devices. The associated description languages and formats are presented and evaluated with regard to their applicability and suitability for this task and the criteria for choosing one are identified and detailed. Next, the article proposes a novel generic modular architecture for reconfiguration support in 4G mobile networks and elaborates on its functional components. We investigate the integration of our logical architecture in the 3GPP mobile network architecture and illustrate the allocation of its functional elements over the logical domains of 3GPP system Release 6 and onwards. Furthermore, we show the signaling between terminal-side and network-side architecture components for software download and protocol stack reconfiguration. Finally, we summarize our experience gained from a prototype implementation, evaluate the total signaling cost, and give directions for future work.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Dillinger, M., Madami, K., Alonistioti, N. (eds): Software defined radio: architectures, systems and functions. Wiley, Hoboken, NJ (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Open Base Station Architecture Initiative, http://www.obsai.org/.

  3. Infoworld: NTT DoCoMo and NEC plan 3G/WLAN handset, http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/12/03/HN33gwlanhandset_1.html.

  4. Vanu Inc., press release, available from http://www.vanu.com/.

  5. Bickle, J. (2000). Software radio architecture (SRA) 2.0 technical overview, OMG TC meeting, Orlando, Florida, http://www.sdrforum.org/.

  6. OMG CORBA Components, Version 3.0. (2002). document formal/02-06-65, http://www.omg.org/.

  7. DARPA next Generation (XG) communication program, http://www.darpa.mil/sto/smallunitops/xg.html.

  8. OMG Software-Based Communication (SBC) Domain task force, http://sbc.omg.org/.

  9. IEEE P1900 Committee, http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/emc/emc/1900/index.html.

  10. IEEE Std. 1900.4-2009. (2009). IEEE standard for architectural building blocks enabling network-device distributed decision making for optimized radio resource usage in heterogeneous wireless access networks.

  11. 3GPP TS 32.106, 3GPP; Technical specification group services and system aspects; telecom management: Principles and high-level requirements telecommunication management; configuration management, http://www.3gpp.org/.

  12. 3GPP TS 32.106-5, Configuration management (CM); part 5: Basic CM integration reference point (IRP): Information model (including network resource model (NRM), http://www.3gpp.org/.

  13. 3GPP TS 22.057, Mobile execution environment (MExE) service description; stage 1, http://www.3gpp.org/.

  14. Open Mobile Alliance, UAProf, http://www.openmobilealliance.org/.

  15. W3C RDF: Resource description framework, http://www.w3.org/RDF/.

  16. Hermann, H., Johnson, R., & Engel, R. A framework for network protocol software, Proceedings OOPSLA ‘95, ACM SIGPLAN Notices.

  17. Janssens, N., Michiels, S., & Verbaeten, P. (2001). DiPS/CuPS: A framework for runtime customizable protocol stacks, technical report, DistriNet, K.U. Leuven.

  18. Michiels, S., Mahieu, T., Matthijs F., & Verbaeten, P. (2001). Dynamic protocol stack composition: Protocol independent addressing. In 4th ECOOP workshop on object-orientation and operating systems (ECOOPOOOSWS’ 2001).

  19. Hutchinson N. C., Peterson L. L.: The x-kernel: An architecture for implementing network protocols. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 17(1), 64–76 (1991)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Mena, S., Cuvellier, X., Gregoire, C., & Schiper, A. (2003). Appia vs. cactus: Comparing protocol composition frameworks. 22nd International symposium on reliable distributed systems (SRDS’03), Florence, Italy.

  21. Kannan, M., Komp, E., Minden, G., & Evans, J. (2003). Design and implementation of composite protocols. Technical report ITTC-FY2003-TR-19740-05.

  22. Muck, M., Bourse, D., Moessner, K., Alonistioti, N., Demestichas, P., Nicollect, E., et al. (2007). End-to-end reconfigurability in heterogeneous wireless systems–software and cognitive radio solutions enriched by policy-and context-based decision making. Proc. 16th IST mobile and wireless communications summit (pp. 1–5). IEEE: Budapest, Hungary.

  23. Bennis, M., Wijting, C., Ojanen, P., Thilakawardana, S., Tafazolli, R., Aebdi, S., et al. (2007). Dynamic spectrum management for future radio networks. Proc. WWRF#19, Chennai, India.

  24. Gazis V., Alonistioti N., Houssos N., Koutsopoulou M., Gessler S., Quittek J. et al.: Intelligent network provisioning for dynamically downloadable applications in beyond 3G mobile networks. Journal of Network and Systems Management 14(2), 221–241 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Bertrand J., Cruz J., Majkrzak B., Rossano T.: CORBA delays in a software-defined radio. IEEE Communications Magazine 40(2), 152–155 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Boufidis, Z., Alonistioti, N., & Merakos, L. (2006). RSS: The reconfiguration support subsystem for next-generation mobile networks. Proc. IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), Istanbul, Turkey.

  27. 3GPP TS 23.228: 3rd Generation partnership project; technical specification group services and system aspects; IP multimedia subsystem (IMS); Stage 2 (Release 8).

  28. ETSI ES 282 001: Telecommunications and internet converged services and protocols for advanced networking (TISPAN); NGN functional architecture release 1.

  29. Hayes, P. RDF semantics, http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-mt/.

  30. Chang, W. (1998). A discussion of the relationship between RDF-Schema and UML, W3C discussion note, http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/NOTE-rdf-uml-19980804.

  31. SPARQL Query Language for RDF, http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/.

  32. Jena Semantic Web framework, http://jena.sourceforge.net/.

  33. ARQ–A SPARQL processor for Jena, http://jena.sourceforge.net/ARQ/.

  34. Jakarta Velocity, http://velocity.apache.org/.

  35. Jakarta Jmeter, http://jakarta.apache.org/jmeter/index.html.

  36. IETF Forwarding and Control Element Separation (forces) working group, http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/forces-charter.html.

  37. The Protégé Ontology Editor and Knowledge Acquisition System, http://protege.stanford.edu/.

  38. 3GPP TR 23.882, 3rd Generation partnership project; technical specification group services and system aspects; 3GPP system architecture evolution: Report on technical options and conclusions, http://www.3gpp.org.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Communication Networks Laboratory (CNL), Department of Informatics & Telecommunications, University of Athens, Panepistimiopolis, 15784, Athens, Ilisia, Greece

    Vangelis Gazis, Zachos Boufidis, Nancy Alonistioti & Lazaros Merakos

Authors
  1. Vangelis Gazis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Zachos Boufidis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Nancy Alonistioti
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Lazaros Merakos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Vangelis Gazis.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Gazis, V., Boufidis, Z., Alonistioti, N. et al. Towards the Functional Enhancement of 3GPP Networks with Reconfiguration Capacities. Wireless Pers Commun 58, 713–739 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-009-9903-0

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-009-9903-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation