A SDN-based distributed mobility management in LTE/EPC network

Abstract

As smart phones have rapidly proliferated over the past few years, LTE operators endeavor to cope with large mobile data traffic volumes. To solve such problems, we propose a new distributed LTE/EPC network architecture based on SDN, NFV, and cloud computing supporting distributed P-GWs and centralized control plane in LTE/EPC networks. It is designed considering the three requirements: (1) distributing P-GWs closer to the user equipments, (2) virtually centralizing control plane, and (3) control and data plane separation. Next, we present a new SDN-based distributed mobility management (SDMM) which confirms to the proposed architecture. Based on the SDMM, the location and handover management are then presented. For enhancing network performance more, we also propose a route optimization strategy for internal traffic exchanged between LTE UEs. The proposed solutions are compared with the conventional LTE/EPC network’s scheme in terms of the gateway data processing volume, handover latency, and the number of valid data sessions. The comparison results show that the proposed solutions can be an efficient way to enhance the scalability of LTE/EPC core networks.