Publications
Technical reports
Norske mobilnett i 2022
In Tilstandsrapport fra Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Center for Resilient Networks and Applications. Oslo, Norway: Simula, 2023.Status: Published
Norske mobilnett i 2022
Denne rapporten er utarbeidet av Center for Resilient Networks and Applications (CRNA), som er en del av Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering. CRNA driver grunnleggende forskning innen robusthet og sikkerhet i nettverk med mandat og finansiering fra kommunal- og moderniseringsdepartementet. Senteret produserer en årlig rapport om tilstanden i norske mobilnett. Årets rapport er den tiende i rekken.
Afilliation | Communication Systems |
Project(s) | The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications |
Publication Type | Technical reports |
Year of Publication | 2023 |
Secondary Title | Tilstandsrapport fra Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Center for Resilient Networks and Applications |
Date Published | 05/2023 |
Publisher | Simula |
Place Published | Oslo, Norway |
ISBN Number | 978-82-92593-38-7 |
Keywords | Mobile networks, Performance, Stability |
Notes | |
URL | https://www.simulamet.no/sites/default/files/norske_mobilnett2022.pdf |
Research Notes |
Proceedings, refereed
A Live Demonstration of In-Band Telemetry in OSM-Orchestrated Core Networks
In Proceedings of the 47th IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN). Edmonton, Alberta/Canada: IEEE, 2022.Status: Published
A Live Demonstration of In-Band Telemetry in OSM-Orchestrated Core Networks
Network Function Virtualization is a key enabler to building future mobile networks in a flexible and cost-efficient way. Such a network is expected to manage and maintain itself with least human intervention. With early deployments of the fifth generation of mobile technologies – 5G – around the world, setting up 4G/5G experimental infrastructures is necessary to optimally design Self-Organising Networks (SON). In this demo, we present a custom small-scale 4G/5G testbed. As a step towards self-healing, the testbed integrates four Programming Protocol-independent Packet Processors (P4) virtual switches, that are placed along interfaces between different components of transport and core network. This demo not only shows the administration and monitoring of the Evolved Packet Core (EPC) VNF components, using Open Source MANO, but also as a proof of concept for the potential of P4-based telemetry in detecting anomalous behaviour of the mobile network, such as a congestion in the transport part.
Afilliation | Communication Systems |
Project(s) | 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure , NorNet, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering |
Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
Year of Publication | 2022 |
Conference Name | Proceedings of the 47th IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN) |
Pagination | 245–247 |
Date Published | 09/2022 |
Publisher | IEEE |
Place Published | Edmonton, Alberta/Canada |
ISBN Number | 978-1-6654-8001-7 |
Keywords | Anomaly detection, Network Function Virtualisation (NFV), Open Source MANO (OSM), P4, Telemetry |
Journal Article
AI Anomaly Detection for Cloudified Mobile Core Architectures
Transactions on Network and Service Management (2022).Status: Published
AI Anomaly Detection for Cloudified Mobile Core Architectures
IT systems monitoring is a crucial process for managing and orchestrating network resources, allowing network providers to rapidly detect and react to most impediment causing network degradation. However, the high growth in size and complexity of current operational networks (2022) demands new solutions to process huge amounts of data (including alarms) reliably and swiftly. Further, as the network becomes progressively more virtualized, the hosting of nfv on cloud environments adds a magnitude of possible bottlenecks outside the control of the service owners. In this paper, we propose two deep learning anomaly detection solutions that leverage service exposure and apply it to automate the detection of service degradation and root cause discovery in a cloudified mobile network that is orchestrated by ETSI OSM. A testbed is built to validate these AI models. The testbed collects monitoring data from the OSM monitoring module, which is then exposed to the external AI anomaly detection modules, tuned to identify the anomalies and the network services causing them. The deep learning solutions are tested using various artificially induced bottlenecks. The AI solutions are shown to correctly detect anomalies and identify the network components involved in the bottlenecks, with certain limitations in a particular type of bottlenecks. A discussion of the right monitoring tools to identify concrete bottlenecks is provided.
Afilliation | Communication Systems |
Project(s) | 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure , The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, NorNet, SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab |
Publication Type | Journal Article |
Year of Publication | 2022 |
Journal | Transactions on Network and Service Management |
Date Published | 08/2022 |
Publisher | IEEE |
Place Published | Los Alamitos, California/U.S.A. |
ISSN | 1932-4537 |
Keywords | 5G, AI, Anomaly detection, Autoencoders, deep learning, Mobile networks, Smart Networks |
DOI | 10.1109/TNSM.2022.3203246 |
Sectors, Beams and Environmental Impact on the Performance of Commercial 5G mmWave Cells: An Empirical Study
IEEE Access 10 (2022): 133309-133323.Status: Published
Sectors, Beams and Environmental Impact on the Performance of Commercial 5G mmWave Cells: An Empirical Study
millimeter wave (mmWave) communication is one of the cornerstones of future generations of mobile networks. While the performance of mmWave links has been thoroughly investigated by simulations and testbeds, the behavior of this technology in real-world commercial setups has not yet been thoroughly documented. In this paper, we address this gap and present the results of an empirical study to determine the actual performance of a commercial 5G mmWave cell through on-field measurements. We evaluate the signal and beam coverage map of an operational network as well as the end-to-end communication performance of a 5G mmWave connection, considering various scenarios, including human body blockage effects, foliage-caused and rain-induced attenuation, and water surface effects. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to report on a commercial deployment while not treating the radio as a black box. Measurement results are compared with 3GPP’s statistical channel models for mmWave to check the possible gaps between simulated and actual performance. This measurement analysis provides valuable information for researchers and 5G verticals to fully understand how a 5G mmWave commercial access network operates in the real-world.
Afilliation | Communication Systems |
Project(s) | The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications |
Publication Type | Journal Article |
Year of Publication | 2022 |
Journal | IEEE Access |
Volume | 10 |
Pagination | 133309-133323 |
Date Published | 12/2022 |
Publisher | IEEE |
ISSN | 2169-3536 |
Keywords | 5G, commercial 5G networks, coverage analysis, millimeter-wave, mmWave |
URL | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9987496 |
DOI | 10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3229588 |
Talks, contributed
Detecting Issues with In-Band Telemetry in OSM-Orchestrated Core Networks
In ETSI, Virtual. Virtual: ETSI, 2022.Status: Published
Detecting Issues with In-Band Telemetry in OSM-Orchestrated Core Networks
Open Source MANO is a helpful tool to manage and orchestrate the instantiation of core network setups, like Network Service (NS) instances of our SimulaMet OpenAirInterface Virtual Network Function (VNF) for Enhanced Packet Cores (EPC). We furthermore extended our NS with VNF instances of Programming Protocol-independent Packet Processors (P4) switches, in order to allow for in-band telemetry. With in-band telemetry, it is possible to flexibly add, process, and remove telemetry information to traffic within the packet core, in order to allow for fine-granular evaluation of the system performance and the users' experienced quality of service. In our presentation and demo, we would like to provide an overview of our ongoing work on P4-based in-band telemetry in an OSM-orchestrated 4G core, which is used for detecting performance problems and anomalies in the network based on machine learning. We would furthermore like to demonstrate the details of our setup to the audience in a live demo.
Afilliation | Communication Systems |
Project(s) | SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, NorNet, 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure |
Publication Type | Talks, contributed |
Year of Publication | 2022 |
Location of Talk | ETSI, Virtual |
Publisher | ETSI |
Place Published | Virtual |
Type of Talk | Demo presentation |
Keywords | Anomaly detection, Network Function Virtualisation (NFV), Open Source MANO (OSM), P4, Telemetry |
URL | http://osm-download.etsi.org/ftp/osm-11.0-eleven/OSM13_Ecosystem_Day/OSM... |
Technical reports
Norske mobilnett i 2021 – Tilstandsrapport fra Centre for Resilient Networks and Applications
Oslo/Norway: Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Centre for Resilient Networks and Applications (CRNA), 2022.Status: Published
Norske mobilnett i 2021 – Tilstandsrapport fra Centre for Resilient Networks and Applications
Denne rapporten er utarbeidet av Center for Resilient Networks and Applications (CRNA), som er en del av Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering. CRNA driver grunn- leggende forskning innen robusthet og sikker- het i nettverk med mandat og finansiering fra Kommunal- og moderniseringsdepartementet. Senteret produserer en årlig rapport om tilstan- den i norske mobilnett. Årets rapport er den niende i rekken.
Afilliation | Communication Systems |
Project(s) | NorNet, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab |
Publication Type | Technical reports |
Year of Publication | 2022 |
Publisher | Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Centre for Resilient Networks and Applications (CRNA) |
Place Published | Oslo/Norway |
ISBN Number | 82-92593-36-5 |
URL | https://www.simula.no/sites/default/files/norske_mobilnett_i_2021.pdf |
Proceedings, refereed
An Exposed Closed-Loop Model for Customer-Driven Service Assurance Automation
In 2021 Joint European Conference on Networks and Communications & 6G Summit (EuCNC/6G Summit). Porto, Portugal: IEEE Computer Society, 2021.Status: Published
An Exposed Closed-Loop Model for Customer-Driven Service Assurance Automation
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is widely applied in telecommunications to enable zero-touch automation in network operation and service management. Due to the high complexity, deploying advanced AI mechanisms is not always feasible inside the operator’s network domains. Instead, via service exposures, it becomes possible for vertical customers to integrate their external AI solutions with the network and service management system to form a closed loop (CL) and contribute to the automation process. In this paper, we propose an exposed CL model based on service exposure and apply it to automate service assurance tasks like autoscaling in a network function virtualization (NFV) system orchestrated by ETSI Open Source MANO (OSM). A testbed is built to validate the model. It collects monitoring data from the OSM monitoring module and external monitoring tools. Vertical customers drive and customize their AI solutions to aggregate these data sets and run analytics to detect and predict anomalies prepared for scaling. Preliminary analysis demonstrates the added values of customer-driven monitoring and analysis via the exposed CL.
Afilliation | Communication Systems |
Project(s) | NorNet, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure |
Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
Year of Publication | 2021 |
Conference Name | 2021 Joint European Conference on Networks and Communications & 6G Summit (EuCNC/6G Summit) |
Pagination | 419–424 |
Date Published | 06/2021 |
Publisher | IEEE Computer Society |
Place Published | Porto, Portugal |
ISBN Number | 978-1-6654-1526-2 |
Keywords | Autonomous Management, Closed Loop, Machine learning, Monitoring, Service Exposure |
DOI | 10.1109/EuCNC/6GSummit51104.2021.9482533 |
Journal Article
Optimising Performance for NB-IoT UE Devices through Data Driven Models
Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks 10 (2021).Status: Published
Optimising Performance for NB-IoT UE Devices through Data Driven Models
<p>This paper presents a data driven framework for performance optimisation of Narrow-Band IoT user equipment. The proposed framework is an edge micro-service that suggests one-time configurations to user equipment communicating with a base station. Suggested configurations are delivered from a Configuration Advocate, to improve energy consumption, delay, throughput or a combination of those metrics, depending on the user-end device and the application. Reinforcement learning utilising gradient descent and genetic algorithm is adopted synchronously with machine and deep learning algorithms to predict the environmental states and suggest an optimal configuration. The results highlight the adaptability of the Deep Neural Network in the prediction of intermediary environmental states, additionally the results present superior performance of the genetic reinforcement learning algorithm regarding its performance optimisation.</p>
Afilliation | Communication Systems |
Project(s) | 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure |
Publication Type | Journal Article |
Year of Publication | 2021 |
Journal | Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks |
Volume | 10 |
Number | 1 |
Publisher | MDPI |
Place Published | Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks |
ISSN | 2224-2708 |
URL | https://www.mdpi.com/2224-2708/10/1/21 |
DOI | 10.3390/jsan10010021 |
Proceedings, refereed
AI-Driven Closed-Loop Service Assurance with Service Exposures
In Proceedings of the 29th IEEE European Conference on Networks and Communications (EuCNC). Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik-Neretva/Croatia: IEEE Computer Society, 2020.Status: Published
AI-Driven Closed-Loop Service Assurance with Service Exposures
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is widely applied in mobile and wireless networks to enhance network operation and service management. Advanced AI mechanisms often require high level of network service exposure in order to access data from as many network elements as possible and execute the AI recommended outcomes into the networks. However, in practice, it is not always feasible to expose the network services to 3rd parties or customers with AI ambitions. Considering that service assurance (SA) is a major area to which AI is applied, this paper describes how a closed-loop SA architecture is associated with the service exposure model in the 5G networks with network slicing. Then we investigate the impact and implication of service exposure on SA. Finally, a set of experiment results are provided to demonstrate the trade-off relationship between the AI ambition and the exposure level in SA.
Afilliation | Communication Systems |
Project(s) | 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure , NorNet, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering |
Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
Year of Publication | 2020 |
Conference Name | Proceedings of the 29th IEEE European Conference on Networks and Communications (EuCNC) |
Pagination | 265-270 |
Date Published | 06/2020 |
Publisher | IEEE Computer Society |
Place Published | Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik-Neretva/Croatia |
Keywords | AI, Service Assurance, Service Exposure |
Journal Article
Dissecting Energy Consumption of NB-IoT Devices Empirically
IEEE Internet of Things Journal 8, no. 2 (2020): 1224-1242.Status: Published
Dissecting Energy Consumption of NB-IoT Devices Empirically
3GPP has recently introduced NB-IoT, a new mobile communication standard offering a robust and energy efficient connectivity option to the rapidly expanding market of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. To unleash its full potential, end-devices are expected to work in a plug and play fashion, with zero or minimal configuration of parameters, still exhibiting excellent energy efficiency. We performed the most comprehensive set of empirical measurements with commercial IoT devices and different operators to date, quantifying the impact of several parameters to energy consumption. Our findings prove that parameters’ settings does impact energy consumption, so proper configuration is necessary. We shed light on this aspect by first illustrating how the nominal standard operational modes map into real current consumption patterns of NB-IoT devices. Further, we investigated which device-reported metadata metrics better reflected performance and implemented an algorithm to automatically identify device state in current time series logs. We worked with two major western European operators to provide a measurement-driven analysis of the energy consumption and network performance of two popular NB-IoT boards under different parameter configurations. We observed that energy consumption is mostly affected by the paging interval in Connected state, set by the base station. However, not all operators correctly implement such settings. Furthermore, under the default configuration, energy consumption in not strongly affected by packet size nor by signal quality, unless it is extremely bad. Our observations indicate that simple modifications to the default parameters’ settings can yield great energy savings.
Afilliation | Communication Systems |
Project(s) | 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure |
Publication Type | Journal Article |
Year of Publication | 2020 |
Journal | IEEE Internet of Things Journal |
Volume | 8 |
Issue | 2 |
Pagination | 1224 - 1242 |
Date Published | 08/2020 |
Publisher | IEEE |
ISSN | 2327-4662 |
Keywords | energy consumption, Internet of things, LTE, NB-IoT |
DOI | 10.1109/JIOT.2020.3013949 |
Proceedings, refereed
Towards Closed Loop 5G Service Assurance Architecture for Network Slices as a Service
In European Conference on Networks and Communications (EuCNC). IEEE, 2019.Status: Published
Towards Closed Loop 5G Service Assurance Architecture for Network Slices as a Service
5G intends to use network slicing to support multiple vertical industries. The dynamic resource sharing and diverse customer requirements bring new challenges towards service assurance (SA), such as automation and customer-centric. As a response to these challenges, this paper proposes a hierarchical, modular, distributed, and scalable SA architecture. This paper highlights an important key feature SA coordination, which is facilitated by three new SA functions, SA interpretation, SA policy management, anddata fabric. Three closed-loops are introduced to coordinate and realize automation of service management. Challenges associated with realizing SA are briefly discussed and will be addressed by leveraging the 5G infrastructure developed within the H2020-ICT-17 project 5G-VINNI.
Afilliation | Communication Systems |
Project(s) | 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure |
Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
Year of Publication | 2019 |
Conference Name | European Conference on Networks and Communications (EuCNC) |
Pagination | 139-143 |
Publisher | IEEE |
Journal Article
Fine-grained LTE radio link estimation for mobile phones
Pervasive and Mobile Computing 49 (2018): 76-91.Status: Published
Fine-grained LTE radio link estimation for mobile phones
Afilliation | Communication Systems |
Project(s) | MONROE: Measuring Mobile Broadband Networks in Europe |
Publication Type | Journal Article |
Year of Publication | 2018 |
Journal | Pervasive and Mobile Computing |
Volume | 49 |
Pagination | 76–91 |
Publisher | Elsevier |
Proceedings, refereed
The Cloud that Runs the Mobile Internet: A Measurement Study of Mobile Cloud Services
In IEEE INFOCOM 2018 - IEEE Conference on Computer Communications. IEEE, 2018.Status: Published
The Cloud that Runs the Mobile Internet: A Measurement Study of Mobile Cloud Services
Mobile applications outsource their cloud infrastructure deployment and content delivery to cloud computing services and content delivery networks. Studying how these services, which we collectively denote Cloud Service Providers (CSPs), perform over Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) is crucial to understanding some of the performance limitations of today's mobile apps. To that end, we perform the first empirical study of the complex dynamics between applications, MNOs and CSPs. First, we use real mobile app traffic traces that we gathered through a global crowdsourcing campaign to identify the most prevalent CSPs supporting today's mobile Internet. Then, we investigate how well these services interconnect with major European MNOs at a topological level, and measure their performance over European MNO networks through a month-long measurement campaign on the MONROE mobile broadband testbed. We discover that the top 6 most prevalent CSPs are used by 85% of apps, and observe significant differences in their performance across different MNOs due to the nature of their services, peering relationships with MNOs, and deployment strategies. We also find that CSP performance in MNOs is affected by inflated path length, roaming, and presence of middleboxes, but not influenced by the choice of DNS resolver.
Afilliation | Communication Systems |
Project(s) | MONROE: Measuring Mobile Broadband Networks in Europe |
Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
Year of Publication | 2018 |
Conference Name | IEEE INFOCOM 2018 - IEEE Conference on Computer Communications |
Pagination | 1619-1627 |
Date Published | 05/2018 |
Publisher | IEEE |
Keywords | cellular networks, cloud service providers, content distribution networks, network measurement |
DOI | 10.1109/INFOCOM.2018.8485872 |
Talks, invited
Mobile Capacity Measurements and Estimation
In Fornebu, Akershus/Norway, 2014.Status: Published
Mobile Capacity Measurements and Estimation
Afilliation | Communication Systems |
Project(s) | The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications |
Publication Type | Talks, invited |
Year of Publication | 2014 |
Location of Talk | Fornebu, Akershus/Norway |
Type of Talk | Proceedings of the 2nd International NorNet Users Workshop (NNUW-2) |