Survey of End-to-End Mobile Network Measurement Testbeds, Tools, and Services

Mobile (cellular) networks enable innovation, but can also stifle it and lead to user frustration when network performance falls below expectations. As mobile networks become the predominant method of Internet access, developer, research, network operator, and regulatory communities have taken an increased interest in measuring end-to-end mobile network performance to, among other goals, minimize negative impact on application responsiveness. In this survey we examine current approaches to end-to-end mobile network performance measurement, diagnosis, and application prototyping. We compare available tools and their shortcomings with respect to the needs of researchers, developers, regulators, and the public. We intend for this survey to provide a comprehensive view of currently active efforts and some auspicious directions for future work in mobile network measurement and mobile application performance evaluation.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials. arXiv does not format the URL references correctly. For a correctly formatted version of this paper go to http://www.cs.montana.edu/mwittie/publications/Goel14Survey.pd

Resource Allocation in 4G and 5G Networks: A Review

The advent of 4G and 5G broadband wireless networks brings several challenges with respect to resource allocation in the networks. In an interconnected network of wireless devices, users, and devices, all compete for scarce resources which further emphasizes the fair and efficient allocation of those resources for the proper functioning of the networks. The purpose of this study is to discover the different factors that are involved in resource allocation in 4G and 5G networks. The methodology used was an empirical study using qualitative techniques by performing literature reviews on the state of art in 4G and 5G networks, analyze their respective architectures and resource allocation mechanisms, discover parameters, criteria and provide recommendations. It was observed that resource allocation is primarily done with radio resource in 4G and 5G networks, owing to their wireless nature, and resource allocation is measured in terms of delay, fairness, packet loss ratio, spectral efficiency, and throughput. Minimal consideration is given to other resources along the end-to-end 4G and 5G network architectures. This paper defines more types of resources, such as electrical energy, processor cycles and memory space, along end-to-end architectures, whose allocation processes need to be emphasized owing to the inclusion of software defined networking and network function virtualization in 5G network architectures. Thus, more criteria, such as electrical energy usage, processor cycle, and memory to evaluate resource allocation have been proposed.  Finally, ten recommendations have been made to enhance resource allocation along the whole 5G network architecture

Trust Evaluation for Embedded Systems Security research challenges identified from an incident network scenario

This paper is about trust establishment and trust evaluations techniques. A short background about trust, trusted computing and security in embedded systems is given. An analysis has been done of an incident network scenario with roaming users and a set of basic security needs has been identified. These needs have been used to derive security requirements for devices and systems, supporting the considered scenario. Using the requirements, a list of major security challenges for future research regarding trust establishment in dynamic networks have been collected and elaboration on some different approaches for future research has been done.This work was supported by the Knowledge foundation and RISE within the ARIES project

Comunicaciones Móviles de Misión Crítica sobre Redes LTE

Mission Critical Communications (MCC) have been typically provided by proprietary radio technologies, but, in the last years, the interest to use commercial-off-the-shelf mobile technologies has increased. In this thesis, we explore the use of LTE to support MCC. We analyse the feasibility of LTE networks employing an experimental platform, PerformNetworks. To do so, we extend the testbed to increase the number of possible scenarios and the tooling available. After exploring the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of LTE, we propose different architectures to support the performance and functional requirements demanded by MCC. We have identified latency as one of the KPI to improve, so we have done several proposals to reduce it. These proposals follow the Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) paradigm, locating the services in what we called the fog, close to the base station to avoid the backhaul and transport networks. Our first proposal is the Fog Gateway, which is a MEC solution fully compatible with standard LTE networks that analyses the traffic coming from the base station to decide whether it has to be routed to the fog of processed normally by the SGW. Our second proposal is its natural evolution, the GTP Gateway that requires modifications on the base station. With this proposal, the base station will only transport over GTP the traffic not going to the fog. Both proposals have been validated by providing emulated scenarios, and, in the case of the Fog Gateway, also with the implementation of different prototypes, proving its compatibility with standard LTE network and its performance. The gateways can reduce drastically the end-to-end latency, as they avoid the time consumed by the backhaul and transport networks, with a very low trade-off

Deploying an NFV-Based Experimentation Scenario for 5G Solutions in Underserved Areas

Presently, a significant part of the world population does not have Internet access. The fifth-generation cellular network technology evolution (5G) is focused on reducing latency, increasing the available bandwidth, and enhancing network performance. However, researchers and companies have not invested enough effort into the deployment of the Internet in remote/rural/undeveloped areas for different techno-economic reasons. This article presents the result of a collaboration between Brazil and the European Union, introducing the steps designed to create a fully operational experimentation scenario with the main purpose of integrating the different achievements of the H2020 5G-RANGE project so that they can be trialed together into a 5G networking use case. The scenario encompasses (i) a novel radio access network that targets a bandwidth of 100 Mb/s in a cell radius of 50 km, and (ii) a network of Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (SUAV). This set of SUAVs is NFV-enabled, on top of which Virtual Network Functions (VNF) can be automatically deployed to support occasional network communications beyond the boundaries of the 5G-RANGE radio cells. The whole deployment implies the use of a virtual private overlay network enabling the preliminary validation of the scenario components from their respective remote locations, and simplifying their subsequent integration into a single local demonstrator, the configuration of the required GRE/IPSec tunnels, the integration of the new 5G-RANGE physical, MAC and network layer components and the overall validation with voice and data services

Deliverable D2.1 - Ecosystem analysis and 6G-SANDBOX facility design

This document provides a comprehensive overview of the core aspects of the 6G-SANDBOX project. It outlines the project's vision, objectives, and the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Key Value Indicators (KVIs) targeted for achievement. The functional and non-functional requirements of the 6G-SANDBOX Facility are extensively presented, based on a proposed reference blueprint. A detailed description of the updated reference architecture of the facility is provided, considering the requirements outlined. The document explores the experimentation framework, including the lifecycle of experiments and the methodology for validating KPIs and KVIs. It presents the key technologies and use case enablers towards 6G that will be offered within the trial networks. Each of the platforms constituting the 6G-SANDBOX Facility is described, along with the necessary enhancements to align them with the project's vision in terms of hardware, software updates, and functional improvements

A Test Methodology for Evaluating Cognitive Radio Systems

The cognitive radio field currently lacks a standardized test methodology that is repeatable, flexible, and effective across multiple cognitive radio architectures. Furthermore, the cognitive radio field lacks a suitable framework that allows testing of an integrated cognitive radio system and not solely specific components. This research presents a cognitive radio test methodology, known as CRATM, to address these issues. CRATM proposes to use behavior-based testing, in which cognition may be measured by evaluating both primary user and secondary user performance. Data on behavior based testing is collected and evaluated. Additionally, a unique means of measuring secondary user interference to the primary user is employed by direct measurement of primary user performance. A secondary user pair and primary user radio pair are implemented using the Wireless Open-Access Research platform and WARPLab software running in MATLAB. The primary user is used to create five distinct radio frequency environments utilizing narrowband, wideband, and non-contiguous waveforms. The secondary user response to the primary user created environments is measured. The secondary user implements a simple cognitive engine that incorporates energy-detection spectrum sensing. The effect of the cognitive engine on both secondary user and primary user performance is measured and evaluated