Mobile IP based Network Developments

Deliverables

A core phenomenon of the beyond 3G wireless communication systems is expected to be seamless interoperability of the existing and future radio access technologies. Each service request is provided by the optimal access technology provided the needed bandwidth, quality-of-service and mobility requirements. The study addresses the needs in spectrum assessment for all wireless services belonging to the "3G and beyond" family. More precisely, the work has resulted in a new simulation based spectrum calculation methodology framework, which allocates the beyond 3G services to proper radio access technologies and uses the resulted offered loads to estimate spectrum needs for radio access technologies that are part of the "3G and beyond" family. The result addresses the needs of newly emerged activities of standardisation and/or regulatory bodies, which aim to finalise a proposal for the spectrum assessment in 2006. This process is a key issue in ITU-R in preparation of decisions on additional frequency bands for mobile communication systems, be expected for the year 2007. The results of this study will provide a useful basis to execute the needed preparatory work for future desition in World Radiocommunication Conferences (WRCs). To the date the results of MIND have been presented in ECC P1, which aims to contribute a European view on this subject to the upcoming discussions in WP8F.

Description and key innovative features The MIND business modelling work provides a framework for the development of new business models in advanced IP network scenarios. The traditional mobile value chain is monolithic - content, internet access and network provision is by a single operator. In the MIND networks the mobile value chain is open and might contain (for example): Content provider Access network provider Service Provider Core network provider Broker/ISP In addition we have developed two MIND specific players in the business models: Auxiliary Network Provider - An individual who uses her device acting as a MMR (MIND Mobile Router) to provide access service to the wireless networks of. Extended Network Provider Extended Network Provider provides the access service to its hot-spot high performance wireless networks, equipped with Wireless Routers MIND research has determined that security (Authentication/Access/Accounting AAA) is a very important factor in such business models ¿ currently the SIM card is the basis of mobile network security. MIND has developed a domain model that attempts to capture the relationship between the MIND players and define a security framework in which they can deliver innovative, flexible services. In addition a flexible, dynamic service provision framework has been detailed ¿ based on SIP this allow network to offer network APIs to third party application providers. Dissemination The results of the MIND business modelling activities have been widely reported at a number of conferences: MIND Workshop London 7th Oct 2002 MIND Workshop Budapest 18th Nov 2002 "Usage scenarios and business opportunities for systems beyond 3G"; T. Robles, E. Mitjana, P. Ruiz; IST Mobile Summit 2002; Thessaloniki, Greece 16-19.06.2002 Accounting management in heteregenous networks.doc by Octavian Tirla, Serge Tessier, Alejandro Bascunana Munoz and Peter Schoo for PIMRC 2002 Use potential These business models will help shape the future of IP mobile networks ¿ they will be useful to regulators ¿ seeking to establish a competitive market. To ad-hoc and non-commercial network operators who wish to extend existing fixed networks (eg community networks). The results will be of use to network operators that want to open their networks and uncoverAPIs ¿ but maintain security and control of resources usage. Current Status The concepts within the MIND business model have been widely published (see above) and it is known that at least one large European Telecomms operator is using this model to define both retail and wholesale products for WLANs, community networks and service creation platforms. Some of the debate on soft SIMs within 3GPP is also influenced by similar thinking. Expected benefits For users ¿ lower cost network and service provision through better competition Network operators ¿ larger market share due to extended coverage with mobile and wireless routers Content providers ¿ larger market from opportunities to deliver to users anywhere Service providers - new service creation opportunities from collecting user preferences and offering wide range of APIs. Description and key innovative features The MIND business modelling work provides a framework for the development of new business models in advanced IP network scenarios. The traditional mobile value chain is monolithic - content, internet access and network provision is by a single operator. In the MIND networks the mobile value chain is open and might contain (for example): Content provider Access network provider Service Provider Core network provider Broker/ISP In addition we have developed two MIND specific players in the business models: Auxiliary Network Provider - An individual who uses her device acting as a MMR (MIND Mobile Router) to provide access service to the wireless networks of. Extended Network Provider Extended Network Provider provides the access service to its hot-spot high performance wireless networks, equipped with Wireless Routers MIND research has determined that security (Authentication/Access/Accounting AAA) is a very important factor in such business models ¿ currently the SIM card is the basis of mobile network security. MIND has developed a domain model that attempts to capture the relationship between the MIND players and define a security framework in which they can deliver innovative, flexible services. In addition a flexible, dynamic service provision framework has been detailed ¿ based on SIP this allow network to offer network APIs to third party application providers. Dissemination The results of the MIND business modelling activities have been widely reported at a number of conferences: MIND Workshop London 7th Oct 2002 MIND Workshop Budapest 18th Nov 2002 "Usage scenarios and business opportunities for systems beyond 3G"; T. Robles, E. Mitjana, P. Ruiz; IST Mobile Summit 2002; Thessaloniki, Greece 16-19.06.2002 Accounting management in heteregenous networks.doc by Octavian Tirla, Serge Tessier, Alejandro Bascunana Munoz and Peter Schoo for PIMRC 2002 Use potential These business models will help shape the future of IP mobile networks ¿ they will be useful to regulators ¿ seeking to establish a competitive market. To ad-hoc and non-commercial network operators who wish to extend existing fixed networks (eg community networks). The results will be of use to network operators that want to open their networks and uncoverAPIs ¿ but maintain security and control of resources usage. Current Status The concepts within the MIND business model have been widely published (see above) and it is known that at least one large European Telecomms operator is using this model to define both retail and wholesale products for WLANs, community networks and service creation platforms. Some of the debate on soft SIMs within 3GPP is also influenced by similar thinking. Expected benefits For users ¿ lower cost network and service provision through better competition Network operators ¿ larger market share due to extended coverage with mobile and wireless routers Content providers ¿ larger market from opportunities to deliver to users anywhere Service providers - new service creation opportunities from collecting user preferences and offering wide range of APIs

In MIND 5 GHz channel and propagation models of the residential rooftop environment were derived. The channel model was used to evaluate the performance of HIPERLAN/2 physical layer. The model indicates that the environment is characterised by a strong LOS component, a short rms delay spread and almost AWGN performance. The results, published in the IST2002-conference, lay the foundation for further receiver, radio resource management and routing studies of the concept. The performance of the mesh scheme according to the IEEE802.16a draft standard was evaluated together with a link layer aware routing algorithm. The system simulation results show the feasibility of the mesh scheme also in the 5 GHz band. The achievable link distances exceeded 300 meters provided tilted antennas and, by deploying additional access points, the mesh network scales well to the user demand without compromising the user bitrates. Regarding the implementation the study proposes that special emphasis should be put to the interference avoidance. This includes directional receiving, co- and adjacent channel interference aware link scheduling and interference minimizing routing algorithms. The results can be used as inputs for the algorithm implementation as well as for mesh network planning software.

The tasks to identify and suggest security mechanisms that sufficiently offer in an economic scale a level of trust for communication in infrastructures encompassing mobile access architectures is complex. The used technology is heterogeneous and the security mechanisms that can be used are suited to each of the encompassed technologies; also, the security mechanisms protect assets or lower vulnerability depend very much on the specific roles and their individual interests participating in the communication. The classical threat analysis is taken and enhanced by consideration of administrative domains, which describes environments of autonomy and independence for the controller of the domain, which opens temporarily their domain to interact with other domain, so that communication is enable and used, for example, to invoke services of content providers. The methodology is organized as follows. The first task is to: - define security goals - identify assumptions: detail scenario and value chain - identify roles & assets Subsequently, the next task is to: - develop Domain Model (DM), map roles to domains - identify protocol stacks at reference points (RP) - perform threat analysis: who causes what threat to asset of whom Finally, it is to: - identify necessary security services/mechanisms to counter the threats - evaluate resulting protocol stacks from security point of view - propose security solutions To identify sufficient security mechanisms, it is necessary to understand the problem domain, the interests of involved parties and eventually the assets that shall be protected and that are individually distinguishable. The business scenarios and value chains of MIND were valuable input to this task, especially since the scenarios highlight business roles that might appear in the future when network infrastructures will include mobile access systems, which were one of the research topic of the MIND project. Help of assets categorization has identified the individual assets so that a matrix is build up. The next step then is to investigate in the technical environment being used by the roles. This is expressed in domains that are associated to the business scenarios roles. The purpose of the resulting DM is to describe the (access) network architecture in an abstract way allowing further developments and refinements. Mainly two issues are relevant and should be expressed by means of the DM, i.e. to - find a way to describe the various network configurations of routers as they can be formed without listing example configurations; - identify the responsibilities of which operators of nodes can/should care, which, as a result of any technical realisation, encompasses restrictions on the usable devices, functionalities, etc.; This includes responsibilities the operators have to obey offline (e.g. subscriptions, approval procedures, etc.). On the other hand, the DM should describe sufficiently precisely the (access) network architecture, so that suggestions for security can be expressed. It encompasses - the trust that needs to be achieved in flexible network configurations amongst administrative domains; - on the technical realisation level resulting requirements, and responsibilities that are to be obeyed but can not be expressed in specific functionality (e.g. certification of routers according to specific standards). The organisation into administrative domain is support in managing the complexity of network architecture, when security mechanisms are used to lower vulnerabilities and protect assets across heterogeneous administrative domains. When interactions go across one domain, then these relationships are expressed in terms of RPs. The objective here is to determine the functional or non-functional responsibilities and obligations forming the nature of the relationship between the associated domains. Among the various aspects that characterise any RP, there is also the enabling technology, if any. Here, protocol stacks at RPs are used for interactions across domains. The domains and RPs describe thus the technical systems at a sufficient abstraction level (technically demanded agreements between domains to support the communication; administrative autonomy within each domain), so that a detailed threat analysis can be carried out, i.e. is to connect asset to the other domains and then determine if this threat is possible. The consequences of threats being shown are typically described as vulnerabilities. Finally, already during the threat analysis some general security services and realizing mechanisms (authentication, authorization, integrity, non-repudiation, etc.) can be proposed to counter the identified threats. Giving hints for the security solutions that are to be proposed. The protocols at RPs are evaluated from two sides: which threats can be countered by the protocols and what new security vulnerabilities are introduced when deploying the protocols.

The validation shows that BCMP, the BRAIN Candidate Mobility Protocol, compares well with existing micro mobility protocols like HMIP and therefore a candidate for future all IP access networks. It is validated against a WLAN radio interface but can very well be used together with other radio interfaces. Access network designer as well as access network operator are the user of this result and the result can be used to improve HMIP. One of the assumptions used was the decoupling of local (or micro) mobility inside the AN from global mobility between ANs, with the two solutions being independent but able to interoperate. During the BRAIN/MIND projects several existing mobility solutions were evaluated. In conclusion the local mobility solution should be a group of sub-protocols. These include User Session Management & AAA, Packet Forwarding & Path Updates, Localized Handover Management (ensuring a seamless change of AR for the MH), and Support for Idle Mobile Hosts. Based on these, BCMP was designed. Some of the requirements for a micro mobility protocol are contradicting and BCMP has been designed to balancing these requirements in order to form a compromise with good enough properties in all categories.

An IP based wireless access network, to allow for better than best-effort services, must support Quality of Service (QoS) mechanisms to differentiate traffic flows that have strick performance requirements, such as real-time multimedia streams. Internet backbones are generally very fast and reliable. A differentiated services (DiffServ) based scheme is typically sufficient to provide the necessary differentiation between different classes of aggregated traffic. However, the radio resources managed by a wireless access network are valuable and must be carefully managed if the available capacity is to be effectively utilized and shared between best-effort traffic and multimedia traffic requiring QoS guarantees. Thus, it becomes necessary to have a mechanism to signal the QoS requirements of an application to the wireless access network. One mechanism to signal QoS requirements and to negotiate QoS guarantees end-to-end in an IP based network is the Resource Reservation Protol (RSVP). However, RSVP has been shown to be too heavy a mechanism to implement in backbone networks. It also has problems coping with host mobility. As a result, within the current Internet only very few hosts and routers support RSVP. The Localized RSVP (LRSVP) is an extension of the standard RSVP, which enables end-hosts to make resource requests from their local access network only. LRSVP requests made by hosts are intercepted by an LRSVP proxy, which resides within the local access network. It processes the resource reservation requests and allocaties the necessary resources from the resource management entities in the local access network. LRSVP can be used in wireless and wired networks and can be coupled with mobility management mechanisms to enable more seamless mobility.

Adaptive applications are a key concept to take into account when dealing with multimedia internetworking in wireless and mobile environments, in which network conditions may change abruptly and not always due to congestion ¿as it happens in fixed networks- but also to interference, mobility and so on. This basic idea of service adaptation was previosly introduced in the BRAIN End-Terminal Architecture (BRENTA), which was investigated during the IST project BRAIN. Within this project, we have validated the use of this concept in several wireless environments ranging from macro and micro-mobility scenarios, to vertical handovers between UMTS and Wireless LANs. We have extended parts of the existing multimedia CSCW ISABEL application, to support real-time adaptation of its capabilitiesallowing the improvement of the user-perceived QoS even when the network conditions are bad. This idea of adaptive applications and services have shown to be very effective in all these scenarios, as it has been demonstrated in the different papers which have been published by MIND partners regarding this work.

For ubiquitous usage existing Wireless LAN technology is extended to be part of future (4th) generation wireless communication. Technological enhancements (specifically in the radio part) are investigated to adress specific weakness areas: extending the range, support of higher mobility (velocities) and increased radio robustness (e.g. lower error rates). Different technological means (based on HIPERLAN/2 radio technology) are explored incl. the layer 2 protocol support). Multiple antenna technologies (both on transmitter side and receiver side) including novel signal processing (time/frequency space coding) increases the range, robusteness and bit rate. For higher velocity support novel channel estimation patterns and procedures are investigated. Joint Layer-1/Layer-2 scheme, combining forward error correction and novel ARQ scheme (incremental redundancy) have shown the usefulness of this approach. Furthermore, several implementation specific improvements are analysed, e.g. decision feedback processing in the receiver. The technological enhancments are not limited to HIPERLAN/2 and could also be used in other similar WLAN standards (e.g. IEEE802.11a). The results are published in numerous scientific contributions (conferences, journals) and shall further be exploited in future WLAN product implementations.

The E2ENP concept developed during the EU-MIND project stems from seminal work done during the EU-BRAIN project: the BRAIN End Terminal Architecture (BRENTA). BRENTA allows end terminals coordinating resource usage among themselves and with the network, to cope with terminal and network resources unstable conditions, by employing a QoS adaptation strategy based on the automatic selection of predefined alternative QoS Contracts, in correspondence to well-defined events. Such events coincide with the detection of changes in terminal- and/or network-resource availability (QoS Violations), like radio propagation degradation or handovers. Alternatively, adaptations can also be triggered based on user commands (QoS Changes), like changing user profile information, starting/stopping media streams. The information required for the automatic selection of alternative QoS Contracts is called Adaptation Path (AP). To efficiently react to QoS Violations/Changes, E2ENP allows peers pro-actively negotiating off-line APs (for single streams as well as for groups thereof) before the actual media streams are established, so that at runtime peers can perform negotiation and renegotiations by simply exchanging QoS Contract identifiers. E2ENP is based on a non-iterative negotiation process. Furthermore, E2ENP includes a procedure for effectively enforcing QoS contracts, the so-called ¿Economy Principle¿. According to this principle, local and peers' resources are reserved before any network resource reservation is made. This is due to the fact that network resources are shared among a multiplicity of users, and thus are more expensive than terminal resources. E2ENP comprises four key phases that can be concatenated within the lifetime of a given session. Alternatively, the first two phases may be executed independently of the latter two and at different times, but strictly following the given order. The phases are: 1.End-to-End QoS Pre-Negotiation Phase Peers perform this phase before the actual start of a communication session, and independently of the session itself, in order to reach an agreement on which APs peers should later enforce. Peers are thus able to establish a common vocabulary, a priori of any specific business. During this phase, the negotiation initiator (the offerer) proposes a bid to the negotiation responders (the answerers), which in turn reply with a counteroffer. This can only be a subset of the proposed bid. 2.Multi-stream QoS Correlation and Time Synchronization Enforcement Phase An optional phase concerning the establishment of dependencies among the multiple streams of a given multimedia session. A given peer applies this phase only if QoS correlation and/or time synchronization constraints are required. A central control entity (e.g. a conference call bridge) could also employ this phase, should the various peers agree upon delegating such entity to carry out complex negotiations. 3.End-to-End QoS Compact Negotiation Phase Peers can perform this phase either before or at the actual start of a session, in order to agree on which QoS-level to enforce for the given session and streams, based on results of previously applied phases. This Compact Negotiation is considerably quicker compared to the case of an End-to-End QoS Full Negotiation process, since only references of pre-negotiated information are actually exchanged among the peers. At completion of this process, peers have agreed upon the QoS Contracts they are going to enforce. 4.End-to-End QoS Compact Re-Negotiation Phase Peers can trigger this phase upon detection of QoS Violations or QoS Changes, so as to agree on a new QoS-level to enforce for the given session, based on results of a previously applied End-to-End QoS Pre-Negotiation. This process is considerably faster compared to the case of the End-to-End QoS Full Re-Negotiation one, since only references of pre-negotiated information are actually exchanged among peers. This phase can be applied several times during the lifetime of any given session. E2ENP interacts with the resource management functions during all the four phases. More specifically, E2ENP interacts with the local and network resource management functions during both the third and forth phase, according to the "Economy Principle". The rules for handling the joining/leaving of peers to a conference service are outside of the scope of the E2ENP. The E2ENP is currently being implemented (as a lab prototype) as an extension of SDPng, piggybacked on SIP PDUs. A standardization effort within the IETF MMUSIC Working Group is ongoing.

The Multicast MANET Ad hoc Routing Protocol (MMARP) is a new ad hoc multicast routing protocol which has been specifically designed to operate in ad hoc network extensions attached to IP networks. In addition to the traditional ad hoc routing features, it is able to give access to traditional IP multicast terminals to IP multicast-enabled access networks. It does not require any changes to the TCP/IP stacks of the traditional IP terminals. It is fully compatible with the multicast equipments and protocols used nowadays in IP networks, allowing for a ready deployment of this approach in existing IP Multicast networks. The main novelty of this protocol is not only the support of traditional IP nodes and the IP Multicast model compliance, but also the its hability to offer a smooth multicast interoperation with fixed IP networks. The protocol solves many of the difficulties in interconnecting ad hoc multicast routing protocols to the Internet: Interoperability, support of the IP Multicast model, Support of standard IP nodes and standard IP Multicast protocols (e.g. IGMP), support of many points of attachment to the fixed IP network, etc. The protocol has been analytically modelled, demostrating good scalability properties as well as a good performance in comparison to other well-known multicast ad hoc routing protocols. The protocol specification can be considered now to be complete, and we think that it can be an important first step towards the vision of future "beyond 3G" networks, extended with ad hoc network fringes.

The IP Service Specific Convergence Sublayer (IP-SSCS) supports both IPv4 & IPv6 and complies with the ETSI BRAN H/2 layered protocol architecture. It additionally supports the features provided by the BRAIN IP2W (IP to wireless) interface for QoS support, handover and mobility control and expands them where necessary. Specific focus has been directed to the address management, providing a unique mapping of the radio link layer addresses onto the IP addresses of the mobile node. In addition, a paging support mechanism for HIPERLAN/2 is proposed. Following the integrated QoS approach in MIND an adequate QoS mapping from IP to the QoS categories offered by the Data Link Control layer of HIPERLAN/2 is supported. In the user plane procedures, the functional specification comprises the messages and SAPs (service access points) offered by the new IP-SSCS to transfer IP-SSCS service data units (SDU) between the AP (access point) SSCS and one or more MTs (Mobile Terminals) in the HIPERLAN/2 network. In the frame of the project, a complete specification of the IP-SSCS was produced. The IP-SSCS will complement the already existing sublayers of HIPERLAN/2 (ATM and 1934). It will cater for the efficient provision of IP services over a HIPERLAN/2 interface. The concept was presented to ETSI on its BRAN#27 meeting. It may become part of the standard if enough support is found for opening a Work Item on the topic.

Exploitable results

Future mobile multimedia users must have the ability to move easily from place to place and retain access to a rich set of information and communication services. The basic characteristics of such a system are location independence, device independence, motion independence and ease of use. In the wireless environment the IP technology will dominate future communications. We will therefore work on an improved IP-based mobile service and application system, based on the results from the IST project BRAIN. The conceptual work will base on the results of BRAIN and focus on enhanced QoS and security features to provide a seamless service provision in a multi-environment of terminals, networks, providers etc. Authentication and accounting will be studied, especially issues related to M-Commerce. Scenarios for different environments will be investigated, dealing among other things with application adaptability and service scalability. Especially aspects like degradation of service, change of the traffic mix and re-negotiation e.g. in case of a vertical hand-over will be addressed. This will lead to solutions for the rapid and flexible creation of broadband multimedia services and applications, that are fully supported and customized when accessed by mobile users. Personal area networks and ad-hoc networks and their impact on applications and services will be addressed. We will also look at the impact of using different operating systems on the concrete system architecture and implementation (protocol stack, interfaces/sockets etc.). The service interface towards the IP/Transport Layer as defined in the project BRAIN will be reviewed in light of the latest developments in standards and adapted if necessary. URL : http://www.ist-mind.org/

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Deliverables

Exploitable results

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