Integrated approach for proxy-mobile-IPv6 (PMIPv6) based IP Flow Mobility and offloading

Mobile data traffic has increased drastically during last few years and expected to increase multifold in the coming years. Heterogeneous wireless networks have made it possible to have simultaneous traffic flows on all available wireless accesses. IP Flow Mobility (IFOM) which has been standardized from 3GPP Release 10 provides possibility to seamlessly transfer individual flows from one access to another. The flow transfer can happen due to different factors like saving cellular resources, using low cost interface, load balancing etc. However, an integrated mechanism to identify whether a traffic flow has to be moved to a different interface considering user preferences, network quality, mobility, policy aspects, network protocols supported and terminal capability is not available. This paper proposes a mechanism that dynamically assesses the interface used for each traffic flow and determines the need for flow transfer to attain better quality of experience for user while using cellular network resources in an optimal manner. We propose the architecture illustrating the various components and their interactions to realize our proposed mechanism of flow transfer/offload based on the discussed criteria. A simulation framework that will be used to validate our approach and demonstrate its benefits/improvements under various practical scenarios is also presented.