Mick Wilson

Evolution of Policy Control and Charging (PCC) Architecture for 3GPP Evolved System Architecture

The 3GPP system is currently being evolved into a system that is composed of heterogeneous access systems with the aim to provide various services at a higher-data-rate and lower-latency based on packet switched networks. Efficient resource usage, charging and international roaming, inherent features within the 3GPP system, are among the key capabilities to be retained in the evolved system. The policy control and charging (PCC) architecture allows operators to perform service based QoS policy and flow based charging control. This paper describes the PCC architecture and how it may evolve in the future 3GPP system for both non-roaming and roaming scenarios. Different possible architectural options are analysed, where the advantages as well as the associated issues arising from these different options are described. The level of impact of the proposed architecture on the baseline (Release 6/7) radio access and core network architecture is also highlighted

QoE-Oriented Mobile Edge Service Management Leveraging SDN and NFV

5G envisages a “hyperconnected society” where trillions of diverse entities could communicate with each other anywhere and at any time, some of which will demand extremely challenging performance requirements such as submillisecond low latency. Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) concept where application computing resources are deployed at the edge of the mobile network in proximity of an end user is a promising solution to improve quality of online experience. To make MEC more flexible and cost-effective Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) technologies are widely adopted. It leads to significant CAPEX and OPEX reduction with the help of a joint radio-cloud management and orchestration logic. In this paper we discuss and develop a reference architecture for the orchestration and management of the MEC ecosystem. Along with the lifecycle management flows of MEC services, indicating the interactions among the functional modules inside the Orchestrator and with external elements, QoS management with a focus on the channel state information technique is presented.

Application of Context Transfer for Roaming in IP-Based Evolved 3G Networks

The 3G mobile networks are currently undergoing evolution and optimization to cope with the rapid growth in IP data traffic and to ensure their competitiveness during the next 10 years and beyond. Roaming, a key revenue generator for mobile wireless networks, has been identified as one of the key capabilities to be retained in the evolved architecture. However, drawbacks have been identified with the existing home controlled and visited controlled roaming models. Towards that end, this paper proposes mechanisms to resolve the problems associated with both of the existing roaming models, utilizing a context transfer concept. The proposed solutions enhance the home controlled roaming model with the optimal routing capability for the user traffic while maintaining its existing strengths such as home control of user traffic and home services access. For the visited controlled roaming model, the proposed mechanisms enable home operator control over the user traffic while retaining its optimized routing for user-to-user traffic and local breakout features

Support of mobile multimedia over radio for a wide range of QoS and traffic profiles

The development of 3rd-generation mobile systems, such as UMTS and IMT-2000, will provide a range of flexible transport characteristics. These systems will enable multimedia services to be offered to mobile users but transport over radio will limit QoS. The requirements of mobile multimedia are considered and compared to the capabilities of ATM networks, IP networks and radio characteristics. The radio interface and access network being developed for UMTS, supported by ATM and IP, are described for the support of mobile multimedia.

Toward QoE-Assured 4K Video-on-Demand Delivery Through Mobile Edge Virtualization With Adaptive Prefetching

Internet video streaming applications have been demanding more bandwidth and higher video quality, especially with the advent of virtual reality and augmented reality appli-cations. While adaptive strea ming protocols like MPEG-DASH (dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP) allows video quality to be flexibly adapted, e.g., degraded when mobile network condition deteriorates, this is not an option if the application itself requires guaranteed 4K quality at all time. On the other hand, conventional end-to-end transmission control protocol (TCP) has been struggling in supporting 4K video delivery across long-distance Internet paths containing both fixed and mobile network segments with heterogeneous characteristics. In this paper, we present a novel and practically feasible system architecture named MVP (mobile edge virtualization with adaptive prefetching), which enables content providers to embed their content intelligence as a virtual network function into the mobile network operators infrastructure edge. Based on this architecture, we present a context-aware adaptive video prefetching scheme in order to achieve quality of experience (QoE)-assured 4K video on demand (VoD) delivery across the global Internet. Through experiments based on a real LTE-A network infrastructure, we demonstrate that our proposed scheme is able to achieve QoE-assured 4K VoD streaming, especially when the video source is located remotely in the public Internet, in which case none of the state-of-the-art solutions is able to support such an objective at global Internet scale.

D2D for energy efficient communications in disaster and emergency situations

We present a novel, D2D based messaging solution to overcome the UE power limitation problems faced by cellular RATs (GSM, UMTS, LTE) in disaster and emergency situations. Through simulations comparing the direct messaging and the proposed messaging schemes, we highlight the possible power savings for the UEs in need of emergency assistance. We utilize a simple energy consumption model for our evaluations, extracted from published measurement results.

Autonomic mobility and resource management over an integrated wireless environment — A GANA oriented architecture

This paper presents the key designing principles and attributes of a novel autonomic architecture for enabling efficient mobility and QoS-aware resource management over an integrated IPv6-enabled heterogeneous wireless environment (CDMA cellular/WLAN). The proposed architecture is founded on Generic Autonomic Network Architecture (GANA), a generic framework for realizing autonomic networks introduced in EFIPSANS EC FP7 project. Emphasis is placed on describing the autonomic components of the architecture, illustrating their interactions and justifying their designing properties towards creating a concrete autonomic paradigm that aims at fulfilling 3GPP/LTE self-optimization vision.

Application of Service Delivery Platform for Supply Chain Management

This paper examines how utilization of Service Delivery Platform (SDP) technology can potentially address some of the key issues facing the existing retail supply chain management (SCM). Existing SCM issues are identified and an analysis of the key functionality requirements for SDPs is described. Meeting these requirements ensures that SDP can provide a collaborative platform for a supply chain with improved end-to-end visibility. Thus the supply chain can better respond to market changes, particularly advantageous in todays demand-driven market.

Security analysis of mobile edge computing in virtualized small cell networks

Based upon the context of Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) actual research and within the innovative scope of the SESAME EU-funded research project, we propose and assess a framework for security analysis applied in virtualised Small Cell Networks, with the aim of further extending MEC in the broader 5G environment. More specifically, by applying the fundamental concepts of the SESAME original architecture that aims at providing enhanced multi-tenant MEC services through Small Cells coordination and virtualization, we focus on a realistic 5G-oriented scenario enabling the provision of large multi-tenant enterprise services by using MEC. Then we evaluate several security issues by using a formal methodology, known as the Secure Tropos.

Impact of radio interfaces on mobile multimedia services

The development of 3/sup rd/ generation mobile systems, such as UMTS and IMT-2000, should provide a range of flexible transport characteristics to support mobile multimedia applications. This will enable many broadband multimedia services developed for ATM and IP to be offered to mobile users. However transport over the radio interface can result in high error rates and delays. Also there is a requirement to maintain user connections and QoS during handover. The characteristics of transport within ATM and IP networks are compared to transport over wideband TDMA and CDMA radio interfaces. Scenarios are developed for the support of interworking, handover and macro diversity.