A software-defined architecture for next-generation cellular networks

In the recent years, mobile cellular networks are undergoing fundamental changes and many established concepts are being revisited. New emerging paradigms, such as Software-Defined Networking (SDN), Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC), Network Function Virtualization (NFV), Internet of Things (IoT),and Mobile Social Networking (MSN), bring challenges in the design of cellular networks architectures. Current Long-Term Evolution (LTE) networks are not able to accommodate these new trends in a scalable and efficient way. In this paper, first we discuss the limitations of the current LTE architecture. Second, driven by the new communication needs and by the advances in aforementioned areas, we propose a new architecture for next generation cellular networks. Some of its characteristics include support for distributed content routing, Heterogeneous Networks(HetNets) and multiple Radio Access Technologies (RATs). Finally, we present simulation results which show that significant backhaul traffic savings can be achieved by implementing caching and routing functions at the network edge

Reliable Video Streaming over mmWave with Multi Connectivity and Network Coding

The next generation of multimedia applications will require the telecommunication networks to support a higher bitrate than today, in order to deliver virtual reality and ultra-high quality video content to the users. Most of the video content will be accessed from mobile devices, prompting the provision of very high data rates by next generation (5G) cellular networks. A possible enabler in this regard is communication at mmWave frequencies, given the vast amount of available spectrum that can be allocated to mobile users; however, the harsh propagation environment at such high frequencies makes it hard to provide a reliable service. This paper presents a reliable video streaming architecture for mmWave networks, based on multi connectivity and network coding, and evaluates its performance using a novel combination of the ns-3 mmWave module, real video traces and the network coding library Kodo. The results show that it is indeed possible to reliably stream video over cellular mmWave links, while the combination of multi connectivity and network coding can support high video quality with low latency.Comment: To be presented at the 2018 IEEE International Conference on Computing, Networking and Communications (ICNC), March 2018, Maui, Hawaii, USA (invited paper). 6 pages, 4 figure

A Fog Computing-Based Device-Driven Mobility Management Scheme for 5G Networks

The fog computing-based device-driven network is a promising solution for high data rates in modern cellular networks. It is a unique framework to reduce the generated-data, data management overheads, network scalability challenges, and help us to provide a pervasive computation environment for real-time network applications, where the mobile data is easily available and accessible to nearby fog servers. It explores a new dimension of the next generation network called fog networks. Fog networks is a complementary part of the cloud network environment. The proposed network architecture is a part of the newly emerged paradigm that extends the network computing infrastructure within the device-driven 5G communication system. This work explores a new design of the fog computing framework to support device-driven communication to achieve better Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE). In particular, we focus on, how potential is the fog computing orchestration framework? How it can be customized to the next generation of cellular communication systems? Next, we propose a mobility management procedure for fog networks, considering the static and dynamic mobile nodes. We compare our results with the legacy of cellular networks and observed that the proposed work has the least energy consumption, delay, latency, signaling cost as compared to LTE/LTE-A networks

MECHANISM TO ENABLE POLICY DRIVEN ROUTE SELECTION IN 5GC AND EPC

In a Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Fifth Generation (5G) core (5GC) network or in a Control and User Plane Separation (CUPS)-based Fourth Generation (4G) Evolved Packet Core (EPC) network, the control and data planes are separate. This allows for the user plane function to be deployed at the centralized datacenter (e.g., co-located with a Session Management Function (SMF) and/or a control plane System Architecture Evolution Gateway (SAEGW), at a remote datacenter (e.g., for a Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) implementation), or at customer premises (e.g., for an enterprise use-case). Such network implementations can increase network complexity as a network operator will need to provide efficient routing mechanisms to support the 5G use-cases, such as Enterprise 5G, Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URLLC) flows, private 5G, low latency applications like gaming, etc. Techniques presented here provide for the ability to address these complexities by enabling dynamic selection of next-hop routes based on subscriber category/policy, user equipment (UE) location, the location/capabilities of User Plane Functions (UPFs), type of traffic/application, and/or UPF slice used

Edge caching with mobility prediction in virtualized LTE mobile networks

Abstract Mobile Edge Computing enables the deployment of services, applications, content storage and processing in close proximity to mobile end users. This highly distributed computing environment can be used to provide ultra-low latency, precise positional awareness and agile applications, which could significantly improve user experience. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to consider next-generation paradigms such as Information-Centric Networking and Cloud Computing, integrated with the upcoming 5th Generation networking access. A cohesive end-to-end architecture is proposed, fully exploiting Information-Centric Networking together with the Mobile Follow-Me Cloud approach, for enhancing the migration of content-caches located at the edge of cloudified mobile networks. The chosen content-relocation algorithm attains content-availability improvements of up to 500 when a mobile user performs a request and compared against other existing solutions. The performed evaluation considers a realistic core-network, with functional and non-functional measurements, including the deployment of the entire system, computation and allocation/migration of resources. The achieved results reveal that the proposed architecture is beneficial not only from the users’ perspective but also from the providers point-of-view, which may be able to optimize their resources and reach significant bandwidth savings