Toward Software-Defined Cellular Networks

Existing cellular networks suffer from inflexible and expensive equipment, complex control-plane protocols, and vendor-specific configuration interfaces. In this position paper, we argue that software defined networking (SDN) can simplify the design and management of cellular data networks, while en...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Li, Li Erran, Mao, Z. M., Rexford, J.
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Subjects:
Base stations
CellSDN
Control systems
IP networks
local control agent
Protocols
Quality of service
Real-time systems
Scalability
software defined networks (SDN)
Online Access:Request full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Existing cellular networks suffer from inflexible and expensive equipment, complex control-plane protocols, and vendor-specific configuration interfaces. In this position paper, we argue that software defined networking (SDN) can simplify the design and management of cellular data networks, while enabling new services. However, supporting many subscribers, frequent mobility, fine-grained measurement and control, and real-time adaptation introduces new scalability challenges that future SDN architectures should address. As a first step, we propose extensions to controller platforms, switches, and base stations to enable controller applications to (i) express high-level policies based on subscriber attributes, rather than addresses and locations, (ii) apply real-time, fine-grained control through local agents on the switches, (iii)perform deep packet inspection and header compression on packets, and (iv)remotely manage shares of base-station resources.
ISSN:2379-0350
DOI:10.1109/EWSDN.2012.28