Terminal detach scenarios in future mobile telecommunications

Abstract

In mobile telecommunications the network should monitor the terminal status, i.e.,switched on, switched off, busy. Once a mobile terminal is switched on, it automatically informs the network about its status (attachment action). However, regarding the way that the network can identify that a terminal is switched off (detachment), there are three alternatives: (a)Periodic detachment scenario. The terminal (when switched on) periodically informs the network about its state. If the network detects that there is no contact with the terminal for more than the agreed time period, it detaches the terminal, (b)Detach on unsuccessful paging. At the instance of a call terminating to a mobile terminal and after a number of unanswered paging messages, the terminal is detached. (c)Detachment action scenario. The moment that the mobile terminal is switched off, it informs the network about its status. Scenarios (a) and (c) claim that paging signaling savings can be achieved when the network is early informed that a mobile terminal is switched off. However, these scenarios require access to the network database, which is expected to be a bottleneck. On the other hand, scenario (b) requires no access to the database but does not guarantee paging signaling savings. In this paper we model the behavior of a terminal so as to compare the above scenarios in terms of performance. Note that paging signaling and database transactions are not the same cost.