Reconfigurable QoS Monitoring for Professionalized Messaging in Mobile Networks

In mobile environments, packet transmission services suffer from packet losses due to e.g. inadequate received signal quality, which is caused by the time and frequency selectivity of the mobile radio channel and by imperfections of mobile terminals, but also due to time-outs and entailed packet deletions, forced by protocols in the signaling domain of the infrastructure of a mobile communications network. To reduce the occurrence of packet losses and, hence, to improve the quality of packet transmission services, such as e.g. the Short Message Service (SMS) deployed in GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) and in GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) based mobile communications networks, a quantitative analysis of the Quality of Service (QoS) in the signaling domain is mandatory. For this reason, appropriate additional QoS parameters, which complement the presently existing set of QoS parameters defined by e.g. ETSI, are needed. In this communication, the authors propose such QoS parameters and apply them to the SMS in GSM networks. Furthermore, a system framework for QoS monitoring, alerting and reconfiguring an SMS Center is presented. The system framework operates near real-time and, therefore, facilitates the reduction of the turn-around time needed for necessary reconfigurations at the SMS Center to maintain a high QoS level. Also, selected monitoring results gathered during real world network operation are presented and discussed.