Mobile core network redimensioning for efficient resource utilization

Abstract

In response to the mobile data tsunami, the research community has studied WiFi offloading based efforts to provide an immediate solution to mitigate the load on both the cellular space and mobile core network. However, this has caused mobile network operators (MNO) to lose control and visibility on the user data since the traffic is usually directed towards the Internet bypassing the operator's core network. Therefore, to offload the traffic from the cellular space but still have the control and visibility and continue offering operator services (i.e., VoLTE) even over WiFi, operators have extended their core network by adding new gateways (e.g. ePDG) that integrate the trusted and untrusted WiFi offloaded traffic. On the other hand, such an extension have caused the core network data load to remain the same while requiring a different solution space. In this paper, we approach the challenges triggered by mobile data explosion from core network gateways' perspective whose load is not alleviated even with WiFi offloading. We first propose the formation of Social-Offloading-Groups (SOGs) to offload the core network in terms of the cellular connection count (i.e., session) while maintaining all regular activities of SOG members over the SOG lead. Secondly, we provide a collaborative core network architecture between geographically distributed gateways to balance their operations and reduce the utilization of core network resources.