2014 UZH, CSG@IFI

An Automatic and On-demand

MNO Selection Mechanism
Christos Tsiaras, Samuel Liniger, Burkhard Stiller
Department of Informatics IFI, Communication Systems Group CSG,
University of Zrich UZH
tsiaras@ifi.uzh.ch, samuel.liniger@uzh.ch, stiller@ifi.uzh.ch
Krakow 06 May 2014 - NOMS 2014
Motivation
MNO Selection Mechanism
Evaluation
2014 UZH, CSG@IFI
Current Termination Service Situation
The mobile termination service, since the early days of mobile
communication, is considered to be a monopoly
Could any of
you connect
me with Alice?
Mobile network X
Alices network

I am the only
network that
can connect
anyone with
Alice!

! Only the Mobile Network
Operator (MNO) that Alice is
connected with can reach her

Bob
2014 UZH, CSG@IFI
Motivation
Alices MNO Bobs network
Bob
Alice
I want to
call
Termination rate
Service rate
! Total cost of the call = Service rate + Termination rate
! Calling Party Pays (CPP) principle ! Total cost
2014 UZH, CSG@IFI
Research Idea
Auction-based Charging User-centric System (AbaCUS)
! Auction
Auction parameters
Quality-of-Service (QoS) parameters
Resources availability
Voice quality
Network access priority
Price

! Automatic and on-demand
MNO selection mechanism
Alices
MNO
MNO X
2014 UZH, CSG@IFI
MNO Selection Mechanism Requirements
! Download it @ http://www.abacusproject.eu/
! Accessing the Android internal Application
Programming Interface (API)
Obtain the original Android framework
Compile own framework
Extract it from a device
Create a customized Android framework
Access the internal API in an Integrated Development
Environment (IDE)
Modify the IDE access rule
Eclipse prohibits to use the internal API
! Sign the application with the system signature key
2014 UZH, CSG@IFI
Evaluation
! MNO switching time R1
! Mechanisms energy consumption R2
! Mechanisms data volume demand R3
010101
2014 UZH, CSG@IFI
Experiment
! Foreign SIM cards in roaming to simulate the SIM
cards acceptance
Switching between every MNO pair 6 x 100 times
5 different time-frames
Urban area inside a building
Moving on a train
2014 UZH, CSG@IFI
MNO Switching Time -1 (R1)
2014 UZH, CSG@IFI
MNO Switching Time - 2 (R1)
! MNO switching time
independent of the:
MNO
Scenario
Stable
Moving
2014 UZH, CSG@IFI
MNO Switching Time Correlations (R1)
RSSI
Value
Signal strength
[dBm]
0 -113
1 -111
2-30 -109 to -53
31 > -51
99 Not known or not
detectable
! Performance independent of:
Signal strength
Time-frame
2014 UZH, CSG@IFI
Long MNO Switching Time (R1)
08:00 10:30 12:00 14:00 17:00 02:00
0
50
100
150
200
250
Time of the day
N
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m
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M
N
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s
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x
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e
e
d
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1
0

s
! Potential affect of high cell occupancy
2014 UZH, CSG@IFI
Calling Time With MNO Switching (R1)
! Low time-overhead
2014 UZH, CSG@IFI
Energy Evaluation (R2)
Consumption 2G max talk
time [h]
2G power
[W]
3G max talk
time [h]
3G power
[W]
Voice Service 18.33 0.3333 8.67 0.705
Stand-by 710.00 0.0086 610.0 0.010
Process Power [W]
Talk 3G 0.7050
MNO selection moving 0.6536
MNO selection stable 0.5406
Talk 2G 0.3333
Power consumption overhead on average of a 3 minute
call: +(2.6-6.5)% battery consumption per call.
2014 UZH, CSG@IFI
Data Evaluation (R3)
Activity Stakeholder Received [B] Sent [B]
Register GCM* Caller/Callee 128 457
Service request Caller 358 (1) 796 (4)
Change MNO Callee 256 (2) 276 (3)
Unregister GCM Caller/Callee 128 437
Caller Callee Auction Authority

1. Service request
2. Change M
NO
3. O
K
4. Ready to call
*Google Cloud Messaging
2014 UZH, CSG@IFI
Conclusions
! An automatic and on-demand MNO selection
mechanism is usable
Energy
Time
! Access to the internal Android API is needed to get
access to the GSM modem
Such method need to be published in the open API from
multiple mobile terminal equipment vendors
!
2014 UZH, CSG@IFI
Thank you
Q&A
FLAMINGO