Managing Smartphones Signalling Load in UMTS Networks: A Practical Analysis

Smartphone users and application behaviors add high pressure to apply smart techniques that stabilize the network capacity and consequently improve the end-user experience. The massive increase in smartphone penetration engenders signalling load, which exceeds the network capacity in terms of signaling. The signalling load leads to network congestion, degradation in the network KPIs. The classical way to tackle the signalling is by network expansion. However, this approach is not efficient in terms of capital expenditure (CAPEX) and also in terms of efficient utilization of the network resources. More specifically, the signaling domain becomes overloaded while the data domain are underutilized. In this paper, two UMTS air-interface features; Cell-PCH (paging channel) and enhanced fast dormancy (E-FD) are analyzed to mitigate the signalling load. Practical performance analysis is conducted based on results from commercial UMTS networks. The deployment of these features offers major improvement in network KPIs and significant relief in the signaling load. It is concluded that these two features in addition to several optimization techniques, discussed in this paper, provide solution to the smartphone signaling load and efficiently utilize the available network and spectrum resources while providing users with better always-on connectivity and improved battery consumption

Analysing and modelling battery drain of 3G terminals due to port scan attacks

In this thesis there is detected a threat in 3G mobile phone, specifically in the eventual draining terminal's battery due to undesired data traffic. The objectives of the thesis are to analyse the battery drain of 3G mobile phones because of uplink and downlink traffic and to model the battery drain. First of all, there is described how we can make a mobile phone to increase its consumption, and therefore to shorten its battery life time. Concretely, we focus in data traffic. This traffic can come from a legal application, or it can be caused by an attack designed to drain battery. Following, there is an introduction to theoretical concepts of 3G networks, Internet protocols, port scan and batteries. After that, there is defined an attack that can drain terminal batteries. Making use of this attack, there are realized several measures of battery duration in different conditions and different mobile phones. Measurement results are compared and analysed. Afterwards, there is modelled the expected battery life time of a mobile phone, having as input data the packets received and sent. There is also defined an "Energy Efficiency" variable that determines the amount of power that a running application in a mobile phone is consuming according to the data sent

QoS management in UMTS terrestrial radio access FDD networks

This work investigates the role and importance of some of the key aspects of QoS planning, provisioning, monitoring and optimisation (QoS Management) for UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA) FDD networks within the framework of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). Firstly, the differences between Quality of end user Experience (QoE) and Quality of Service (QoS) are explained. This is followed by a review of 3GPP requirements for QoS concept and architecture. Then all models and the main assumptions in this dissertation are presented. Based on these, original QoS mechanisms in the radio access network domain, means and methods for QoS provisioning, planning, monitoring and "optimisation" are discussed. Simulation results showed substantial spectral efficiency gains provided by service (or user) differentiation in UTRAN by means of priorities and differentiated parameter settings. When appropriately configured, the proposed QoS mechanisms can greatly reduce the need for bandwidth. Performance results proved also the proposed virtual time simulator to be an appropriate tool for service driven WCDMA radio interface dimensioning and detailed radio network planning. It is also shown that measuring QoS performance by a proper classification of counters (and or gauges), based on a particular subset of radio access bearer attributes, is a promising technique for assessing performances of service applications through WCDMA networks. With this new method there is no need to trace upper layer protocols at different interfaces or dumping data in mobile terminals. The proposed metrics allow operators to measure the bandwidth required for robust statistical reliability, to assess and exploit statistical sharing of resources, to configure QoS functions effectively, and to monitor QoE. The application of the proposed technique is not limited to the WCDMA Radio Network Subsystem (RNS), yet it can be deployed in any radio access and packet core network supporting mapping of performance indicators onto a particular subset of QoS attributes. Finally, in order to maximise the performance of the available services in UTRAN, at a given QoE, simulation results showed clear needs for the network administrator to adapt the parameter settings to diverse input application traffic conditions and the proposed genetic approach to be an appropriate solution space search algorithm for this purpose.reviewe

Performance and Power Characterization of Cellular Networks and Mobile Application Optimizations.

Smartphones with cellular data access have become increasingly popular with the wide variety of mobile applications. However, the performance and power footprint of these mobile applications are not well-understood, and due to the unawareness of the cellular specific characteristics, many of these applications are causing inefficient radio resource and device energy usage. In this dissertation, we aim at providing a suite of systematic methodology and tools to better understand the performance and power characteristics of cellular networks (3G and the new LTE 4G networks) and the mobile applications relying upon, and to optimize the mobile application design based on this understanding. We have built the MobiPerf tool to understand the characteristics of cellular networks. With this knowledge, we make detailed analysis on smartphone application performance via controlled experiments and via a large-scale data set from one major U.S. cellular carrier. To understand the power footprint of mobile applications, we have derived comprehensive power models for different network types and characterize radio energy usage of various smartphone applications via both controlled experiments and 7-month-long traces collected from 20 real users. Specifically, we characterize the radio and energy impact of the network traffic generated when the phone screen is off and propose the screen-aware traffic optimization. In addition to shedding light to the mobile application design throughout our characterization analysis, we further design and implement a real optimization system RadioProphet, which uses historical traffic features to make predictions and intelligently deallocate radio resource for improved radio and energy efficiency.PhDComputer Science & EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/99905/1/hjx_1.pd

Теорія систем мобільних інфокомунікацій. Системна архітектура

Навчальний посібник містить опис логічних та фізичних структур, процедур, алгоритмів, протоколів, принципів побудови і функціонування мереж стільникового мобільного зв’язку (до 3G) і мобільних інфокомунікацій (4G і вище), приділяючи увагу розгляду загальних архітектур мереж операторів мобільного зв’язку, їх управління і координування, неперервності еволюції розвитку засобів функціонування і способів надання послуг таких мереж. Посібник структурно має сім розділів і побудований так, що складність матеріалу зростає з кожним наступним розділом. Навчальний посібник призначено для здобувачів ступеня бакалавра за спеціальністю 172 «Телекомунікації та радіотехніка», буде також корисним для аспірантів, наукових та інженерно-технічних працівників за напрямом інформаційно-телекомунікаційних систем та технологій.The manual contains a description of the logical and physical structures, procedures, algorithms, protocols, principles of construction and operation of cellular networks for mobile communications (up to 3G) and mobile infocommunications (4G and higher), paying attention to the consideration of general architectures of mobile operators' networks, their management, and coordination, the continuous evolution of the development of the means of operation and methods of providing services of such networks. The manual has seven structural sections and is structured in such a way that the complexity of the material increases with each subsequent chapter. The textbook is intended for applicants for a bachelor's degree in specialty 172 "Telecommunications and Radio Engineering", and will also be useful to graduate students, and scientific and engineering workers in the direction of information and telecommunication systems and technologies