Reducing location update and paging costs in a PCS network

Mobility tracking operations in a personal communication service (PCS) system are signaling consuming. Several strategies have been proposed in the literature to reduce both the location update (LU) and the paging (PG) costs. In this paper, we propose a location-tracking algorithm called three-location area (TrLA), combined with selective paging. In TrLA, the mobile terminal (MT) allocates the identification of three neighboring location areas (LAs) in its local memory. We call this set of three LAs, a big-location area (BLA). Each time the MT exits the BLA, it triggers an LU message to the system databases via a base station, in order to maintain the databases up to date. The MT also updates its cache memory. A two-step selective PG is also considered and compared with the single-step (or nonselective PG). An analytical model based on a semi-Markov process has been used to evaluate our proposal. This scheme is compared with the classical Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) standard and the two-location algorithm proposal. As a result, this new scheme outperforms the cited strategies, and in our opinion, it can easily be implemented in existing standard cellular and personal communication systems     

个人通信位置管理的计时双位置算法

提出了一种新的位置管理算法——计时双位置算法，从理论上导出了TTLA算法的总代价函数，给出了传统IS-41和双位置算法(TLA)的统～数学框架。通过性能分析可知，TTLA算法能根据用户的呼叫移动比，在IS-41和TLA两者之间进行选择，综合性能好，且在某些情况下，性能要超过另两种算法。     

A selective location update strategy for PCS users

A new location update strategy for personal communication services (PCS) networks and its implementation using a genetic algorithm are proposed. Most of the practical cellular mobile systems partition a geographical region into location areas (LAs) and users are made to update on entering a new LA. The main drawback of this scheme is that it does not consider the individual user mobility and call arrival patterns. Combining these factors with the LAbased approach, we propose an optimal update strategy which determines whether or not a user should update in each LA, and minimizes the average location management cost derived from a userspecific mobility model and call generation pattern. The location management cost optimization problem is also elegantly solved using a genetic algorithm. Detailed simulation experiments are conducted to capture the effects of mobility and callarrival patterns on the location update strategy. The conclusion from this work is that skipping location updates in certain LAs leads to the minimization of the overall location management cost for a user with a specific mobility pattern and even with moderately high call arrival rate.     

A direction-based location update scheme with a line-pagingstrategy for PCS networks

On the problem of location update and terminal paging, many schemes using ring-paging strategies have been proposed. However, sequentially paging the rings surrounding the mobile user's last updated location may cause large paging cost. We propose a direction-based location update (DBLU) scheme using a line-paging strategy to reduce the paging cost. A moving direction identification mechanism using only simple computations detects the change of moving direction and updates the mobile's location. The numerical results show that our DBLU scheme achieves good performance when the paging cost is high     

Dynamic mobile user location update for wireless PCS networks

The basic architecture of a personal communication network consists of a wireline network and mobile terminals. Each mobile terminal communicates with the wireline network through a nearby base station. In order to route incoming calls to a destination mobile terminal, the network must keep track of the location of each mobile terminal from time to time. This is achieved bylocation update such that each mobile terminal reports its current location to the network at specific time points. When an incoming call arrives, the network will page the mobile terminal starting from the last updated location. A trade-off, therefore, exists between the frequency of location update and the number of locations paged in order to track down the mobile terminal. This paper introduces a location update policy which minimizes the cost of mobile terminal location tracking. A mobile terminal dynamically determines when to update after moving to a new cell based on its mobility pattern and the incoming call arrival probability. The performance of this scheme is close to that of the optimal policy reported earlier. However, the processing time requirement of this scheme is very low. The minimal computation required by this scheme enables its usage in mobile terminals which has limited energy supply and computational power.     

An adaptive distance-based location update algorithm fornext-generation PCS networks

In this paper, we propose a stochastic model to compute the optimal update boundary for the distance-based location update algorithm. The proposed model is flexible and captures some of the real characteristics in the wireless cellular environment. The model can adapt to arbitrary cell topologies in which the number of neighboring base stations at different locations may vary. The cell residence time can follow general distributions which captures the fact that the mobile user may spend more time at certain locations than others. The model also incorporates the concept of a trip in which the mobile user may follow a particular path to a destination. For implementation, the decision of location update can be made by a simple table lookup. Numerical results indicate that the proposed model provides a more accurate update boundary in real environment than that derived from a hexagonal cell configuration with a random walk movement pattern. The proposed model allows the network to maintain a better balance between the processing incurred due to location update and the radio bandwidth utilized for paging between call arrivals     

EDBLU: enhanced direction-based location update scheme for PCS networks

An enhanced direction-based location update scheme (EDBLU) is presented. Unlike the direction-based location update (DBLU) scheme, in EDBLU the location update depends on both the moving direction and the moving distance. The performance of EDBLU is analysed based on the discrete-time 2D Markov walk model. The results confirm that the EDBLU scheme reduces the signalling cost significantly for different mobility patterns.     

Location update cost of distance-based scheme for PCS networks with CTRW model

This letter concerns the optimization of the dynamic location-update area (LA) for the per-user distance-based scheme in personal communication service (PCS) networks. We have two main contributions: (1) under the general and popular one-dimensional (1-D) continuous-time random walk (CTRW) mobility model, we propose a novel framework to analyze the location update cost; (2) with this framework, we investigate the impact of call arrivals and the initial position of the mobile terminal (MT) on the position of the LA, which was neglected by previous work. Simulation shows that our theoretical model is very accurate.     

Implicit deregistration in a PCS network

Registration/deregistration is required in a PCS network when a portable moves between registration areas. Several schemes were proposed to deregister a portable after it moves out of a registration area (RA). A simple scheme called implicit deregistration totally eliminates network traffic due to deregistration. However, this scheme may delete valid registration records. Thus, the size of a registration database must be sufficiently large to ensure low probability that a valid registration record is deleted. This paper describes an analytic model to determine the size k of the registration database for an RA in the implicit deregistration scheme. If the expected number of portables in an RA is N, then our study indicates that good performance can be achieved if k≃5N     

An intra-LA location update strategy for reducing paging cost

The blanket paging strategy in current mobile networks may waste a lot of wireless bandwidth. While keeping the standard location area (LA) based location update (LU) strategy unchanged, we propose an intra-LA LU scheme to reduce the paging cost. While a mobile terminal (MT) is residing in an LA with a cell called anchor cell, where the MT usually stays for a significant period, an intra-LA LU is performed whenever the MT changes its location between the anchor cell and the rest of cells in the LA. For an incoming call, either the anchor cell or the rest of cells in the LA is paged to locate the MT. Thus the paging cost is greatly reduced, especially when the called MT is located in its anchor cell.     

基于多跳蜂窝网的组位置管理策略

提出了一种成组进行位置管理的策略,分析了彼此临近的移动台组成一个自组织网的基本网络模型,提出了向中继点注册,由中继点进行信令压缩,组成组控制信令,成批向网络报告位置的位置更新的策略;采用M/M/n/n模型具体比较了批处理方案与传统方案的性能,说明作者的方案不仅减少了移动台的发射功率,还大量节省了频率资源,增加了系统的吞吐能力。     

Call performance for a PCS network

It is well known that, due to the mobility of a portable and limited channel availability, calls of portables may not be completed due to being blocked or terminated during the call initiation or the handover process. The characteristics of the call-completion and call-holding times for both a complete call and an incomplete call are of critical importance for establishing the actual billing process in the PCS network. We derive the call-completion probability (hence, call-dropping probability) and the effective call-holding time distributions for complete/incomplete calls with a general cell-residence time and a general call-holding time are analyzed, and general computable formulas are obtained. We show that when call-holding times are Erlang distributed, easy-to-compute formulas for the probability of a call completion and the expected effective call-holding times for both a complete call and an incomplete call can be derived     

Comparing the PCS location tracking strategies

The cache scheme has been proposed to reduce the location tracking overhead of a personal communications services (PCS) network. In the previous papers, we studied the cache scheme under the assumptions that the home location register (HLR) access time is constant and the portable residence times have an exponential distribution. This paper compares the cache scheme with a basic scheme (such as IS-41). We generalize the previous models by considering the queueing effect of the HLR (i.e., we model the HLR by an M/G/1 queue) and by considering an arbitrary distribution for the portable residence times. Our study shows that the cache scheme is likely to outperform the basic scheme when (1) the net traffic to the HLR in the basic scheme saturates and the hit ratio in the cache scheme is larger than zero, (2) the portable mobility is low with respect to the call arrival rate, and (3) the variance of the HLR service time distribution is large (for a fixed mean service time). We also indicate an intuitive result that the cache hit ratio is high for a high call arrival rate and low portable mobility. For a fixed mean portable residence time, we show that a higher cache hit ratio is expected for a portable residence distribution with larger variance     

An auxiliary user location strategy employing forwarding pointers to reduce network impacts of PCS

We propose an auxiliary strategy, calledper-user forwarding, for locating users who move from place to place while using Personal Communications Services (PCS). The forwarding strategy augments the basic location strategy proposed in existing standards such as GSM and IS-41, with the objective of reducing network signalling and database loads in exchange for increased CPU processing and memory costs. The key observation behind forwarding is that if users change PCS registration areas frequently but receive calls relatively infrequently, it should be possible to avoid registrations at the Home Location Register (HLR) database, by simply setting up a forwarding pointer from the previous Visitor Location Register (VLR). Calls to a given user will first query the user's HLR to determine the first VLR which the user was registered at, and then follow a chain of forwarding pointers to the user's current VLR. We use a reference PCS architecture and the notion of a user'scall-to-mobility ratio (CMR) to quantify the costs and benefits of using forwarding and classes of users for whom it would be beneficial. We show that under a variety of assumptions forwarding is likely to yield significant net benefits in terms of reduced signalling network traffic and database loads for certain classes of users. For instance, under certain cost assumptions, for users withCMR<0.5, forwarding can result in 20–60% savins over the basic strategy. This net benefit is due to the significant saving in location update compared to a penalty of moderately increased call setup times for the infrequent occasions when these users do receive calls.     

Channel reservation for handoff calls in a PCS network

Some new performance measures and channel reservation for handoff calls for maximizing the service provider's revenue in a personal communications service (PCS) network, with general cell residence time and general requested call holding time, are investigated. Here, each cell within the PCS network consists M channels, but only when at least m+1 (0⩽m<μ) channels are available will a new originating call be accepted. A handoff attempt is unsuccessful if no channel in the target cell is available. Some new performance measures of the system such as the modified offered load (MOL) approximations of the blocking probability of new and handoff calls, the distribution and the mean actual call holding time of a new call and related conditional distributions and the expectations, as well as the boundary of the mean of the actual call holding time of an incomplete call and a complete call are obtained. A necessary and sufficient condition for maximizing the provider's revenue is achieved for any general cost structure if it is an increasing function of the actual call holding time. In order to be fair to the customers with incomplete call and complete call, two different kinds of holding costs are considered for the different customers. In both situations, the optimal controlling value m of handoff priority is obtained by maximizing the service provider's revenue     

Reducing the network cost of call delivery to GSM roamers

When a GSM user travels to a foreign country, it is anticipated that a call delivery from a caller in that country to the GSM roamer should be a local phone call. Unfortunately, under the current GSM implementation, the call delivery results in two international calls! In this article we explain why current GSM implementation is expensive for this kind of call delivery, and then propose four solutions to reduce the two international calls into one local phone call. Our solutions may significantly reduce the nonnecessary usage of international circuits as well as customer costs     

Adaptive region-based location management for PCS systems

The personal communications services (PCSs) systems can provide ubiquitous and customized services. The key issue, which affects the performance of the whole system, is the location management. We propose a region-based location strategy by taking advantage of the user's movement behavior to improve the performance of the conventional systems. Each mobile user is associated with a set of regions, which are derived from the user's movement patterns. The registration processes in the same region can be eliminated such that the cost of location management can be significantly reduced. Several design issues are studied by considering the workload balance and the call-to-mobility ratio for a user. The proposed strategy can be dynamically adjusted based on different system parameters and user behavior. A performance analysis on the signaling cost and the database access cost is given to justify the benefits of this approach     

More efficient location tracking in PCS systems using a noveldistributed database system

In personal communication services (PCS), the complete location information and subscribers' profiles are kept in a database called the home location register (HLR). Another database, the visitor location register (VLR), is used to store partial location information. When a mobile user is called, the system queries the HLR to determine the location of the called party. Distributed databases have been introduced to improve the efficiency of querying the HLR. This paper presents an alternative means of constructing a distributed database. The proposed database design employs fixed pointers to link distributed data. Each database contains a portion of the system's information as well as several pointers. The pointers identify the location of real data, enabling the system to obtain the required information efficiently. The database of the proposed design is markedly smaller than the fully distributed databases since each database of the proposed design stores only partial information. Subscriber information is stored only in one database, thus allowing a single database, rather than multiple databases, to be updated. The single update presented herein notably reduces the signal traffic load. If the caller is in the registration area of some HLR, which holds the called party's information, the response time is significantly decreased since the transactions are served only by the local database. This phenomenon is referred to as the calling locality. The proposed method effectively shares the database and the network loading that originates from several databases' tracking mobile users in a PCS system. According to the results presented, this method is highly effective for systems with a heavy load and high calling locality. The single update feature of the proposed design reduces the traffic in the signaling link and the processing load of a database. However, the proposed method includes no fault tolerance and therein differs from the fully distributed design     

Dynamical mobile terminal location registration in wireless PCS networks

In this paper, we propose a mobile terminal (MT) location registration/update model. In this model, the registration decision is based on two factors-the time elapsed since last call arrival and the distance the MT has traveled since last registration. It is established that the optimal registration strategy can be represented by a curve. Only when the state of the system reaches this curve is a registration performed. In order for an MT to calculate its traveled distance, an interactive implementation scheme and a distance calculation algorithm are developed. When the call interarrival times are independent and geometrically distributed, the proposed model becomes a distance-based model and, in this case, the optimal registration strategy is of threshold structure. For the distance-based model, a single sample path-based ordinal optimization algorithm is devised. In this algorithm, without any knowledge about the system parameters, the MT observes the system state transitions, estimates the ordinal of a set of strategies, and updates the registration strategy adaptively. Since only a single sample path is used, this algorithm can be implemented online. Several numerical examples are provided to compare the proposed model and the existing ones.     

Optimal fractional movement-based scheme for PCS location management

In this letter, we propose a fractional movement-based location update scheme for personal communication service networks. Similar to the well-known fractional guard channel scheme for channel assignments, in our proposed scheme, the movement threshold is a real number with a fraction instead of an integer. We prove analytically that there is a unique optimal fractional movement threshold that minimizes the total cost of location updates and paging per call arrival.