Signaling Load analysis in 5G/EPC Architecture
Azzad Bader Saeed, M. A. Waheed, Thanaa Hussein · International Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering (IJECE) · 2021
Continuous and increasing signals from smartphones and the machine applications cause a huge load on the Core Network (CN). This is attributed to the large number of control messages traded between the CN entities in every communication or service request. So it became imperative to find an innovative design to keep up with this load. As a consequence, a variety of proposed architectures, including the Software Defined Network (SDN) paradigm focused on the separation of control and data plans, have been implemented to make the network more flexible. On the other hand, a Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) architecture has been suggested, which is based on separating the Base Band Units (BBU) from several base stations and assembling them in one place. A novel approach based on SDN and C-RAN has been introduced in this paper, while at the same time distributing the control elements of the Core Network (CN) and moving them together with the BBU to obtain the lowest possible load, the performance of the proposed architecture has been evaluated against the traditional architecture by using the MATLAB software package. The results of the assessment compared to the traditional architecture indicate a major increase in the reduction of signaling load, as the number of signaling messages exchanged between control entities decreased by 53.19% compared to the current architecture.