ZTE Communications ›› 2014, Vol. 12 ›› Issue (2): 34-40.doi: DOI:10.3969/j.issn.1673-5188.2014.02.006

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SDN-Based Data Offloading for 5G Mobile Networks

Mojdeh Amani 1, Toktam Mahmoodi 1, Mallikarjun Tatipamula 2, and Hamid Aghvami 1   

  1. 1. King’s College London, The Strand, London, WC2R 2LS, UK;
    2. F5 Networks, San Jose, CA 95134, USA
  • Received:2014-03-04 Online:2014-06-25 Published:2014-06-25
  • About author:Mojdeh Amani (mojdeh.amani@kcl.ac.uk) worked in cellular industry after graduating with a BSc degree in telecommunications. She received her MSc in digital signal processing and PhD in telecommunications from King’s College London. Her research interests include QoS provisioning, resource management, data offloading in next-generation heterogeneous wireless networks, cloud computing, and software-defined networking. She has an ongoing interest in advances in science and their applications beyond research. She has publications on different aspects of next-generation mobile networks.

    Toktam Mahmoodi (toktam.mahmoodi@kcl.ac.uk) works in the Department of Informatics, King’s College London. She received her BSc degree in electrical engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Iran, in 2002. She received her PhD degree in telecommunications engineering from Kings College London in 2009. From 2010 to 2011, she was previously a postdoctoral research assistant in the Intelligent Systems and Networks Group, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London. From 2006 to 2009, she was a PhD research assistant in the Core-4 Efficiency Program, Virtual Centre of Excellence in Mobile and Personal Communications (Mobile VCE). She has previously received the IEEE Best Paper Award from IEEE ICC and IARIA E-Energy. She is a member of IEEE and the ACM and has been on the Program Committee of number of IEEE flagship conferences.

    Mallikarjun Tatipamula (m.tatipamula@f5.com) is vice president and CTO of service provider and cloud solutions at F5 Networks. He is responsible for innovation and implementation of new and disruptive technologies across the company. Mallik Tatipamula has more than 23 years’experience with telecommunication and networking technologies and has held leadership roles at Ericsson, Juniper, Cisco, and Motorola. He is a fellow of IET and has co-authored more than 100 patents and publications and two books on networking. He has a PhD in information and communication engineering from the University of Tokyo. He received BS degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India. He has delivered lectures on networking at Stanford University, Tsinghua University China, and Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. He is currently a visiting professor at King’s College London.

    Hamid Aghvami (hamid.aghvami@kcl.ac.uk) is director of the Centre for Telecommunications Research, King’s College London. He leads a team that is working on numerous mobile and personal communications projects supported by government and industry. From 2001 to 2003, he was a member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Communications Society. From 2004 to 2007, he was a distinguished lecturer of the IEEE Communications Society. He has also been a member, chairman, and vice-chairman of the Technical Program and Organizing Committees of many international conferences. He is the founder of the International Symposium on Personal, Indoor, and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC), a major yearly conference attracting around 1000 attendees. He has published more than 700 technical papers and given invited talks and courses worldwide on various aspects of personal and mobile radio communications. He has received numerous awards for his technical contributions to the communications field and for his services to scientific and engineering communities. He is a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the IET.

Abstract: The rapid growth of 3G/4G enabled devices such as smartphones and tablets in large numbers has created increased demand for mobile data services. Wi-Fi offloading helps satisfy the requirements of data-rich applications and terminals with improved multimedia. Wi-Fi is an essential approach to alleviating mobile data traffic load on a cellular network because it provides extra capacity and improves overall performance. In this paper, we propose an integrated LTE/Wi-Fi architecture with software-defined networking (SDN) abstraction in mobile backhaul and enhanced components that facilitate the move towards next-generation 5G mobile networks. Our proposed architecture enables programmable offloading policies that take into account real-time network conditions as well as the status of devices and applications. This mechanism improves overall network performance by deriving realtime policies and steering traffic between cellular and Wi-Fi networks more efficiently.

Key words: mobile data offloading, LTE/Wi-Fi interworking, policy derivation, network selection, software-defined networking, dynamic policies, 5G mobile networks