Experimental Scenarios of Information-Centric Networking Integration in 4G Mobile Networks

Abstract

A 4G mobile network uses IP-based transport for the control plane to establish the data session at the user plane for the actual data delivery. In the existing architecture, IP-based unicast is used for the delivery of multimedia content to a mobile terminal, where each user is receiving a separate stream from the server. From a bandwidth and routing perspective, this approach is inefficient. Evolved multimedia broadcast and multicast service (eMBMS) provides capabilities for delivering contents to multiple users simultaneously, but its deployment is very limited or at an experimental stage due to numerous challenges. The focus of this document is to list the options for using Information-Centric Networking (ICN) in 4G mobile networks and elaborate the experimental setups for its further evaluation. The experimental setups discussed provide guidance for using ICN either natively or with an existing mobility protocol stack. With further investigations based on the listed experiments, ICN with its inherent capabilities such as network-layer multicast, anchorless mobility, security, and optimized data delivery using local caching at the edge may provide a viable alternative to IP transport in 4G mobile networks.

Abstract as published in the RFC, via rfc-editor.org.

What “Informational” means

Published for the general information of the community. It does not define an IETF standard and carries no standards-track status.