IP-based Cellular Networks: an Analytical Comparative Study about the Delivery Cost of Paging and Location Signalling

Inhalt:
The 4G is the next step to a future with cellular networks technology heterogeneous but with a common denominator: the use of the IP protocol, particularly IPv6, as interconnection layer. This evolution to a fully IP-based cellular network will open the way to the IP delivery of mobility management signalling, that is handover location and paging. Focus of this paper is in the transport of location and paging signalling. An analytical model is introduced in order to evaluate the cost of this transport over the wired and wireless part of an IP-based cellular network. The model includes different paging strategies and several alternatives to transport their messages, namely, Xcast, Geopaging and standard unicast and multicast. The results show that Geopaging and in some cases unicast are the best choices.