Mobility Management as a Radio Access Network Service

Abstract

Fifth generation (5G) core network is serviceoriented. It uses service-based interfaces between the control plane functions which improve modularity and align better with cloud networking. In this paper we propose an approach to service oriented radio access network (RAN), where the functions of Next Generation Application Protocol (NGAP) are designed as services of small size that are easily to debug and test. The focus is on handover procedures, where the handover control is exposed as a service. Following the Representational State Transfer (REST) style, we define service resources and the supported methods. Service implementation is considered in terms of modeling the handover state as seen by the core network, source and target radio nodes. The models are formally described and it is proved that they expose equivalent behavior.