MULTEX: multiple PDN connections in LTE and beyond for enhanced routing and services

Abstract

The centralised architecture of LTE networks will become a major problem with the forecasted growth of mobile traffic and users. The use of tunnelling all the way from a base station to a core network gives very little flexibility in routing and traffic management, and limits the possibility to offload central components. In this work, we propose MULTEX -- an opportunistic step towards a packet switched model for current and future generation mobile networks. MULTEX transforms a user terminal into a multi-homed device that is simultaneously and independently connected to several packet data networks with different geographical or logical boundaries.