A Session-Based Cross-Layer Approach for Seamless Connectivity in Next-Generation Mobile Networks

Abstract

The Fifth Generation (5G) network provides a platform for emerging technologies such as vehicular communication, massive Internet of Things (IoT), and tactile internet. It is paving the way to a modern autonomous industry with mobility as a key requirement to achieve seamless end-to-end connectivity. But the current transport layer is not well equipped with the evolving lower layers to deal with the dynamics of the network conditions during mobility. The variation in network conditions and frequent disturbance in lower layers due to handovers causes performance degradation in the transport layer. Hence, we propose a novel solution called ID oriented Socket Layer (IoSL), an end-to-end solution for futuristic applications. It is an ID-based software solution that maintains a unique identifier among the transport layer connections to provide seamless connectivity to the end devices. During user mobility and frequent handover scenarios, it communicates with the lower layers and effectively controls the transport layer for achieving improved Quality-of-Service (QoS) with enhanced user experience. We prototyped IoSL in mobile devices and evaluated the performance using the ns-3 simulator as well as live-air experiments. The experiments are conducted using Wi-Fi and 5G networks, and the results show a significant reduction in reconnection latencies around 33% and improved end-user throughput by up to 16%.