A cloud-enabled small cell architecture in 5G networks for broadcast/multicast services

© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.The evolution of 5G suggests that communication networks become sufficiently flexible to handle a wide variety of network services from various domains. The virtualization of small cells as envisaged by 5G, allows enhanced mobile edge computing capabilities, thus enabling network service deployment and management near the end user. This paper presents a cloud-enabled small cell architecture for 5G networks developed within the 5G-ESSENCE project. This paper also presents the conformity of the proposed architecture to the evolving 5G radio resource management architecture. Furthermore, it examines the inclusion of an edge enabler to support a variety of virtual network functions in 5G networks. Next, the improvement of specific key performance indicators in a public safety use case is evaluated. Finally, the performance of a 5G enabled evolved multimedia broadcast multicast services service is evaluated.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Applicability of SDN and NFV techniques for a virtualization-based roaming solution

Part of a collection: Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) for a Hyperconnected World: Challenges, Applications, and Major Advancements.Network programming and virtualization are technological trends being incrementally introduced in operational networks. This creates an environment where new innovations can be incorporated, facilitating also the evolution of the way in which existing services are delivered. These changes, however, are not only motivated by technical reasons. External factors, such as regulation, can trigger the evolution of existing services. Roaming services are an example of this two-sided situation. From the technical perspective, roaming users typically experiment worst performance than local users on the same network, since their traffic is usually routed through the home network. Besides that, due to recent regulation changes introduced in Europe for roaming services, known as Roam Like at Home (RLAH), roaming is charged at domestic prices. Both aspects are severely challenging the current mode of operation of roaming services as delivered nowadays by mobile operators. This paper presents the design of a virtualized based roaming solution, including an experimental assessment, as well as an economic insight of the concept.This work has been supported by the European Community through the 5GEx project within the H2020 programme (Grant agreement no. 671636). Special thanks to the teams of Deutsche Telekom and BISDN involved in H2020 EU 5GEx project that were part of the design and execution of this use case

Progressive introduction of network softwarization in operational telecom networks: advances at architectural, service and transport levels

Technological paradigms such as Software Defined Networking, Network Function Virtualization and Network Slicing are altogether offering new ways of providing services. This process is widely known as Network Softwarization, where traditional operational networks adopt capabilities and mechanisms inherit form the computing world, such as programmability, virtualization and multi-tenancy. This adoption brings a number of challenges, both from the technological and operational perspectives. On the other hand, they provide an unprecedented flexibility opening opportunities to developing new services and new ways of exploiting and consuming telecom networks. This Thesis first overviews the implications of the progressive introduction of network softwarization in operational networks for later on detail some advances at different levels, namely architectural, service and transport levels. It is done through specific exemplary use cases and evolution scenarios, with the goal of illustrating both new possibilities and existing gaps for the ongoing transition towards an advanced future mode of operation. This is performed from the perspective of a telecom operator, paying special attention on how to integrate all these paradigms into operational networks for assisting on their evolution targeting new, more sophisticated service demands.Programa de Doctorado en Ingeniería Telemática por la Universidad Carlos III de MadridPresidente: Eduardo Juan Jacob Taquet.- Secretario: Francisco Valera Pintor.- Vocal: Jorge López Vizcaín

End-to-end Mobile Network Slicing

Wireless networks have gone through several years of evolution until now and will continue to do so in order to cater for the varying needs of its users. These demands are expected to continue to grow even more in the future, both in size and variability. Hence, the 5G technology needs to consider these variabilities in service demands and potential data explosion which could accompany users’ demands at the core of its architecture. For 5G mobile network to handle these foreseen challenges, network slicing \cite{c13} is seen as a potential path to tread as its standardization is progressing. In light of the proposed 5G network architecture and to support and end-to-end mobile network slicing, we implemented radio access network (RAN) slicing over a virtualized evolved Node B (eNodeB) and ensured multiple core network slices could communicate through it successfully. Our results, challenges and further research path are presented in this thesis report

5G network end-to-end delay measurements for live video streaming

Abstract. Focus of this thesis is in the data transmission delay comparison between Edge server and Cloud server when utilizing either 4G or 5G connectivity. In previous mobile phone network generations for example a multimedia server had to be installed on a Cloud server in the internet. 5G mobile phone network introduces a new concept called Edge server. Edge server is located close to the base station and therefore it is assumed to shorten the data transmission delay between the 5G mobile/client and a server application. Edge server can be used both in 4G and 5G networks. In this thesis first the 5G network and the essential new 5G architecture main design principles are gone through. Next the 5G Test Network that is used as a test environment is described and 5G main modules like Multi-access Edge Computing are introduced. 5G performance is clarified and compared against 4G. Delay testing is done in the 5G Test Network using Hospital Use Case demo. There operating room personnel like doctors and nurses is wearing Augmented Reality glasses and they are streaming their view together with patient status related information to multimedia server residing in 5G Test Network Edge server or in internet cloud. From the multimedia server the video is streamed by for example students, medical experts or consultants in a remote location. As part of the thesis the test system is defined and built based on the Hospital Use Case demo. Test specification is created, and tests are executed according to it. Results are recorded and analysed. Data transmission delays between the video stream originator and multimedia server are measured using Qosium measurement system. Also delay between the multimedia server and the streaming client is measured. Measurements are done for configurations where multimedia server is located at the Edge server and the internet cloud server. Both 4G and 5G connectivity is used for both server locations. When delay measurement results were compared it became clear that Edge server has much shorter data transmission delays compared to the internet cloud server. With 5G connectivity the delay was measured to be around 10 milliseconds for both uplink and downlink. With internet cloud the delays varied between 31 and 45 milliseconds with 5G connection. It can be concluded that from today’s mobile phone networks, 5G network does offer the fastest connection to a server environment by utilizing Edge server.5G verkon viiveen mittaaminen videostriimille. Tiivistelmä. Tämä diplomityö keskittyy vertaamaan datatiedonsiirron eroja reunapalvelimen ja internetin pilvipalvelimen välillä 4G ja 5G matkapuhelinverkossa. Aiempien sukupolvien matkapuhelinverkoissa esimerkiksi multimediapalvelin oli asennettava internetin pilvipalvelimelle. Viidennen sukupolven matkapuhelinverkossa otetaan käyttöön reunapalvelin. Reunapalvelin sijaitsee tukiaseman läheisyydessä ja täten sen oletetaan lyhentävän 5G-päätelaitteen ja palvelimen sovelluksen välistä tiedonsiirtoviivettä. Reunapalvelinta voidaan käyttää sekä neljännen että viidennen sukupolven matkapuhelinverkoissa. Tässä diplomityössä käydään ensin läpi 5G-matkapuhelinverkko ja sen arkkitehtuurin pääsuunnittelukriteerit. Seuraavaksi kuvataan testaamisessa käytettävä 5G-testiverkko ja 5G-verkon tärkeimmät moduulit kuten Multi-access Edge Computing. 5G-verkon suorituskyky selitetään ja sitä verrataan edelliseen 4. sukupolven verkkoon. Viivemittaukset tehdään 5G testiverkossa käyttäen 5G lääketieteen käyttötapauksen demoympäristöä. Siinä operointihuoneen henkilöstöllä, kuten lääkäreillä ja hoitajilla, on yllään lisätyn todellisuuden lasit. Lasit lähettävät henkilön näkymän ja potilaaseen liittyvää tietoa 5G-testiverkon reunapalvelimella tai internetin pilvipalvelimella sijaitsevalle multimediapalvelimelle. Multimediapalvelimelta video striimataan esimerkiksi lääketieteen opiskelijoille, asiantuntijoille tai konsulteille, jotka ovat etäällä lähetyspaikasta. Osana diplomityötä määritellään ja rakennetaan lääketieteen käyttötapauksen demon perustuva testausjärjestelmä. Testispesifikaatio luodaan, testit suoritetaan sen perusteella. Testitulokset tallennetaan ja analysoidaan. Tiedonsiirtoviiveet videolähteen ja multimediapalvelimen välillä mitataan käyttäen Qosium mittausjärjestelmää. Myös multimediapalvelimen ja videostriimin vastaanottajan väliset viiveet mitataan. Mittaukset tehdään konfiguraatiolle, jossa multimediapalvelin on sijoitettu reunapalvelimelle ja konfiguraatiolle, jossa se on sijoitettu internetin pilvipalvelimelle. Sekä 4G että 5G-yhteyttä käytetään molemmille konfiguraatiolle. Kun mittaustuloksia verrataan, käy selväksi, että reunapalvelimella on huomattavasti lyhyempi tiedonsiirtoviive kuin internetin pilvipalvelimella. 5G-yhteydellä mitattu viive oli noin 10 ms sekä ylössyöttö- että alassyöttösuuntaan. Internetin pilvipalvelimella viiveet vaihtelivat 31 ja 45 millisekunnin välillä 5G-yhteydellä. Voidaankin todeta, että nykyisistä matkapuhelinverkoista 5G-verkko tarjoaa nopeimman yhteyden palvelinympäristöön reunapalvelimen avulla