Umberto Fattore

December 20, 2018

Modelling the 5G core for low latency scenarios

In mobile communication, simply put, latency is the time user traffic takes to travel between the user mobile smartphone and the service in the network (e.g., a video streaming server). Dependent of the type of application, the less is this time the better is the experience from the user point of view: what if you have to wait 10 seconds for your video to start? You would probably not appreciate […]
September 7, 2018

Inside the 5G core: current status and research opportunities

3GPP is the organization responsible for the specification of the 5G architecture and its operation, which is currently arrived at Release 15. [1] The entire 5G architecture  can be divided into an access network (AN), composed of all the physical apparatus and logical elements needed for radio connectivity to user equipment (UE – e.g., Smartphones, IoT devices, vehicles, etc.), and the 5G core (5GC), which manages the user end-to-end connection […]
September 7, 2018

Control-/User Plane Separation (CUPS) in mobile networks

Control-/User Plane Separation (CUPS) [1] in mobile networks refer to the complete separation between control plane functions (which take care of the user connection management, as well as defining QoS policies, performing user authentication, etc.) and user plane functions (which deal with data traffic forwarding). It was first introduced by 3GPP’s Release 14 at packet data gateway level, concerning the 4G Evolved Packet Core (mobile core for 4G networks) and […]