Dynamic Interconnections for the Cellular Ecosystem

Project Information

DICE

Grant agreement ID: 841315

DOI

10.3030/841315

Project closed

EC signature date 22 March 2019

Start date 1 September 2019

End date 31 August 2021

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 160 932,48

EU contribution

€ 160 932,48

Coordinated by

TELEFONICA INVESTIGACION Y DESARROLLO SA
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DICE (Dynamic Interconnections for the Cellular Ecosystem)

Reporting period: 2019-09-01 to 2021-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

My main scientific goal within the DICE project was to analyze and innovate the interconnection models between users, operators and third-party infrastructure providers (such as IP Packet Exchange Providers) that enable networks to interconnect and offer cellular services globally.

The project results in DICE are among the first to expose how international roaming in the cellular ecosystem supports IoT platforms and the massive number of IoT devices they deploy world-wide. We successfully addressed technical challenges towards supporting a true global service for mobile end-users (e.g. the need for home routed roaming), and demonstrated the need to elevate the roaming function to a first-class citizen status within the cellular ecosystem.

Specifically, as part of DICE, I tackled two major objectives, namely: (i) Illuminating the cellular ecosystem; and (ii) Building an intelligent system for dynamic network interconnections.
DICE results validated the shift in operating models withing the cellular ecosystem, which emerged as a response to the demand for connecting a massive number of extremely heterogeneous terminals (personal use smartphones and IoT devices), operating globally in different environments around the world, with specific performance requirements. The analysis in DICE shows how the extensive cellular infrastructure that international carriers and cellular providers have been shaping for the past decades is ill-adapted for the global operating model IoT verticals or digital nomads demand. Although permanent roaming is not new to the industry, its implications due to its widespread use have made it a core issue that mobile operators need to seriously address as part of their native architecture. With DICE, I addressed several of the gaps within the current 5G architecture related to the implementation of the roaming function.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

My work in DICE followed three main stages, during which I worked to achieve my research objectives.

In the first stage, I made major contributions towards advancing the state of the art on cellular ecosystem analysis.
I provided a first look at the opaque IP EXchange (IPX) ecosystem, including a first-of-its-kind in-depth analysis of an IPX Provider.
I characterized the IPX Network, which is a private network formed by a small set of ~30 tightly interconnected IPX-Ps.
I shed light on the structure of the IPX Network as well as on the temporal, structural and geographic features of the IPX traffic.
These results are a first step in understanding the IPX Network at its core, key to fully understand the global mobile Internet.

I also measured the implications that current solutions for mobile roaming have on the end-user experience.
I showed that majority of operators deploy home-routed roaming (HR) roaming, where the home MNO routes the end-user traffic back to the home country.
This results in a degradation on the end-user quality of experience of up to 150% in case of intercontinental roaming (for example, a Spanish SIM roaming in the US).
Together with my collaborators, I build a vast dataset for end-user quality of experience in roaming, which we made public here: https://smartdata.polito.it/measuring-roaming-in-europeinfrastructure-andimplications-
on-users-qoe/.

As part of the second stage, I captured the cellular ecosystem health in three major measurements studies, which I presented in top venues in our community: SIGCOMM (the flagship annual conference of the Special Interest Group on Data
Communication, a vital SIG of the ACM) and IMC (the top annual conference focusing on Internet measurement and analysis, sponsored by ACM SIGCOMM and ACM SIGMETRICS).
My work quantifies the adoption of roaming by M2M platforms and the impact they have on the underlying visited operators.
I analyzed IoT verticals operating with connectivity via IoT SIMs in roaming, and present the first large-scale study of commercially deployed IoT SIMs for energy meters.
I also present the first characterization of an operational M2M platform, and the first analysis of the associated ecosystem.

Despite the importance of IPX-Ps to support IoT, little was previously known about their operations and performance.
In my work, I shed light on these opaque providers by analyzing a large operational IPX-P with more than 100 PoPs in 40+ countries,
with a particularly strong presence in America and Europe. These results constitute a step towards
advancing the understanding of IPX-Ps at their core, and provide guidelines for their operations and
customer satisfaction.

During early 2020, the SARS-CoV-2 virus rapidly spread worldwide, forcing many governments to impose strict lockdown measures to tackle the pandemic.
This significantly changed people’s mobility and habits, subsequently impacting how they use telecommunication networks.
As part of my work in this project around the health of the interconnection ecosystem, I investigated this extraordinary situation, and the effects of the COVID-19 emergency on a mobile network from the UK.
I quantified the changes in users’ mobility and investigate how this impacted the cellular network usage and performance.
My analysis spans from the entire UK to specific regions, and geo-demographic area clusters.

In the final stage of the project, I focused on building novel solutions for enabling MNOs to offer truly native global service to their roaming end-users.
I focused both on improving the health of the IPX system by building tailored solutions for anomaly detection, and on tackling
the inefficiency of roaming solution via innovations on top of the 5G architecture.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

My work in the DICE project materialized into six publications in top venues within our community, including SIGCOMM (the flagship annual conference of the SIG on Data
Communication, a vital group of the ACM) and IMC (the top annual conference focusing on Internet measurement and analysis, sponsored by ACM SIGCOMM and ACM SIGMETRICS).

Moreover, my work received interest from the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), and it was included as a contribution to the RFC9075 "Report from the IAB COVID-19 Network
Impacts Workshop 2020".

My work in DICE resulted in two patents filed, and tight collaborations with companies within the Telefonica corporation for further exploitation.

Finally, I also worked to disseminate and communicate the results of DICE, within our research community, to specialized audience within industry, and to the general public.
Aside from the aforementioned publications, I have presented my work in network operators groups (e.g. RIPE 81, RIPE 83), within courses to form students (e.g. invited course at Imperial College London), or in specialized blogs (e.g. APNIC blog post).

I have been very active within the scientific community also as part of various committees, contributing to organize ACM MobiCom 2020, ACM CoNEXT 2020 and 2021, ACM SIGCOMM 2021.
I have contributed as Technical Program Chair to the ACM/IRTF ANRW 2021, PAM 2021 and to the NOSSDAV 2021.
Finally, I have contributed invited talks to COMSNNETS 2021 and IEEE WoWMoM 2021.

Finally, my work was reported on within the general media, exposing to the general public the wider implications of the COVID-19 lockdown on mobile networks: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/10/28/one-10-inner-london-residents-left-home-lockdown-mobile-phone/

High-level structure of the IP eXchange (IPX) ecosystem.