Evolved Packet Core QoS Performance Evaluation over MPLS Core network

Abstract

3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) and the Evolved Packet Core (EPC) are the most advanced technologies in the wireless and mobility field, since they provide high speed data and various sophisticated applications to Mobile Users. This Thesis presents an intensive simulation study of LTE/EPC traffic performance over MPLS core site using a Poisson Process Traffic generator. This simulation investigates two models: MPLS Model and IP Model. The MPLS Model is simulated by MPLS core routers attached to the PGW EPC data plane for a realistic scenario while the IP Model uses IP core routers instead. These two models are fed by a Poisson Pareto Burst Process (PPBP) traffic which matches the statistical properties of real time IP internet traffic and it also matches the new trends in Machine-to-Machine traffic. The performance of the two LTE/EPC models is evaluated and compared using jitter Analysis and Delay Variation Analysis. Meanwhile, this thesis proves the End-to-End interoperability of LTE and MPLS running GTP and MPLS Label Forwarding Information Base (LFIB) and MPLS traffic engineering respectively. The MPLS clearly enhanced the packet jitter variations as already discussed in the simulation graphs. A mathematical analysis is done and the MPLS improves the network jitter Enhancement Percentage parameter with 19.9 percent. This is not only the gain because the MPLS has a lot of features to add. If more properties of the MPLS is added such as load balancing, service resilience and QoS support the LTE/EPC network, it will be much more efficient with respect to packet forwarding through the MPLS labels, better load balancing through the MPLS traffic engineering, and better service resilience with respect to restoration of core networks disaster, and also much more efficient with respect to QoS by using MPLS constraint-based routing and End-to-End QoS.

Key words: LTE; EPC; E-UTRAN; Poisson; jitter; Core network; GTP-tunnel; MPLS-tunnel; Traffic Engineering; UDP; QoS.