Scalable Mobile Core Network Architecture for All-IP Wireless Access

As a variety of wireless access technologies have emerged and 3G systems are evolving towards “all-IP” where both voice and data services are converged into IP core networks, IP mobility has become increasingly important. IP micro-mobility protocols have been proposed for managing local mobility. They have a hierarchical network structure, which contributes to decreased network overheads by minimizing signaling traffic for registration. In this paper, we first define a mobile core network and introduce traffic models for it. We then point out that micro-mobility protocols based on this hierarchical structure have a network bottleneck in the gateway node due to packet routing that could worsen network scalability. We then propose an architecture for the mobile core network. The architecture has a non-hierarchical flat topology and has no single gateway node routing packets, making it possible to provide fast and low-latency packet forwarding and delivery to mobile nodes.