Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen

Lehrstuhl für Informatik IV

Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Otto Spaniol

Mobility Management in GPRS

Seminar: Data Communication and Distributed System

Winter 2003/04

Wichan Threamthrakanpon
Matrikelnummer: 244535

Betreuung: Roger Kalden

Ericsson Research, Corporate Unit
Ericsson Eurolab Deutschland GmbH
 Table of Contents

ABSTRACT ____________________________________________________ 3
1. INTRODUCTION _____________________________________________ 3

2. CONCEPT OF MOBILITY IN MOBILE COMMUNICATION ______ 4

2.1 Mobility Management Framework ______________________________ 4
2.2 GPRS in Mobility Management Framework ________________________________ 5
3. GPRS MOBILITY MANAGEMENT _____________________________ 5
3.1 GPRS System Architecture ____________________________________ 6
3.2 GPRS Session Management ___________________________________ 7
3.2.1 Attach, Detach Procedure ________________________________ 8
3.2.2 PDP Context Activation, Deactivation Procedure _____________ 8
3.3 GPRS Mobility Management __________________________________ 8
3.3.1 State Model ___________________________________________ 9
3.3.2 Location Update _______________________________________ 9
3.3.3 RA Update____________________________________________ 10
3.3.4 Cell Reselection _______________________________________ 11
3.3.5 Paging of GPRS Mobile Station ___________________________ 11
4. USER MOBILITY INVESTIGATION ___________________________ 12
4.1 Investigation by Mathematical Formulation and Analytical Method ____12
4.2 Investigation by Measuring Geographic Position ___________________13
4.3 Investigation by Exploring Trace Data in Cellular Network __________ 18
5. CONCLUSION _______________________________________________20

6. REFERENCES _______________________________________________ 21

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 Abstract

Mobility management plays a significant role in the new cellular wireless network
standard GPRS. GPRS provides a number of functions, such as location update, cell
reselection, paging mobile station, etc., to support subscriber mobility. The
characterization of different forms of user mobility and their effects on communication
traffic are also important in planning, design, and operation of mobile communication
network. This paper describes concepts of mobility in mobile communication, the GPRS
mobility management and various user mobility investigation techniques.

1. INTRODUCTION
The General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a step between GSM and 3G cellular networks.
GPRS offers faster data transmission via a GSM network up to the maximum speed 171.2
kbps. This new technology makes it possible for users to make telephone calls and transmit
data at the same time. (For example, if you have a mobile phone using GPRS, you will be able
to simultaneously make calls and receive e-mail messages.) The main benefits of GPRS are
that it reserves radio resources only when there is data to send and it reduces reliance on
traditional circuit-switched network elements.
GPRS can be thought of as an overlay network onto the GSM network because GPRS uses
most of existing GSM network elements, plus new network elements, interfaces, and
protocols for building a packet-based mobile cellular network. GPRS is the technology that
provides packet data access to an existing GSM Networks. It is designed to support an
efficient mobile packet network. One of the greatest advantages of GPRS is that it allows a
subscriber to access data services at a higher data rate while on the move. Therefore, reliable
seamless mobility handling is a significant key requirement for wireless data networks and in
order to achieve the quality of service (QoS), the efficient mobility handling algorithm is
needed. Consequently the user mobility model, used to predict the movement of subscriber, is
used in planning and implementing the mobility handling algorithm. This causes an emerging
of several researches in user mobility investigation techniques.

The rest of this paper explores the issues of concepts of mobility in mobile communication,
the GPRS mobility management and various user mobility investigation techniques.
To describe the concept of mobility, a mobility framework will be first introduced and then
we analyze how the GPRS mobility is fixed in our framework in section 2. In addition, in
section 3 the GPRS mobility management is presented in detail. In section 4, we present
various user mobility investigation approaches, such as an investigation by mathematical
formulation, by measuring geographic position, and by exploring trace data, including
examples and results from the existing papers [4]-[8], and compare the advantage of each
approach.

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2. CONCEPT OF MOBILITY IN MOBILE COMMUNICATION
In order to define a complete mobility management solution, we need to define the framework
of mobility management. In the Mobility Management in Mobile Internet, S. Uskela [2], the
mobility framework has been examined in three different aspects of mobility: use cases,
realization, and functionality. They refer to end user’s perception of the provided mobility,
and basic procedures that each mobility management technology supports. In this section,
mobility framework will be discussed.

2.1 Mobility Management Framework

Use Cases
S. Uskela [2] has defined the mobility use case from the end-users’ point of view as three
different use cases: static, nomadic and continuous mobility. Static mobility is the case that
there is no movement at all. Nomadic mobility is the ability to retain access at the
intermediate stop and at the destination, for instance, the users use laptops to connect to the
internet from different locations. Continuous mobility refers to the model that the users are
always reachable and capable to access the network during the movement. The example for
the last use case is the use of cellular network which, the users are always connected to the
network and reachable while on the move.
In the paper On Fundamental Concept of Mobility for Mobile Communication, Jun-Zhao Sun
and Jaakko Sauvola [3], the mobility use case is defined further to pervasive mobility. This
scenario is known as mobile ad hoc network communication where the mobile hosts without
using any pre-existing network infrastructure are free to move randomly.

Realization
Based on the use cases discussed above, there are two main different realization approaches to
realize mobility: personal and device mobility. The former approach focuses on movement of
the user while the latter approach focuses on movement of the user’s device [2].
Personal Mobility focuses on providing communication services and ubiquitous network
access for users independent of the device they are currently using, for example, the use of
SIM card in GSM system. Another interesting aspect of personal mobility is personalizing the
operating environment and maintaining the personalization when changing the device.
Device Mobility focuses on movement of device and can be realized in different protocol
layers: link, network, session and application layer. While using link layer mobility, device’s
point of attachment to IP network remains the same, for instance, IEEE 802.11 and GPRS
networks can provide link layer mobility. The network layer mobility has to be provided by
the IP routing, there fore Mobile IP (MIP), solution for IPv4 and IPv6, supports the network
layer mobility. For session layer mobility, the application can be running on top of session
without awareness of the movement.

Function
In general there are a numbers of functions used in the mobility management schemes and
since there is some variation in different technologies, these functions can be variant. As a
result, only the key functions are discussed here.

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Registration. Usually this function is used when the mobile device is switch on. The mobile
device informs the network that it is ready to start sending and receiving communication data.
The registration function also include the process of checking the authentication of the user to
use the network.
Paging. Normally the network knows the accurate location of the mobile device only when
the device is in the state that performs cell updates frequently. If the device is in power saving
mode, the paging function is essential in order to retrieve the current cell, the device is
located.
Location Update. Location update is used to inform the current location of the device to the
network. This location update function can be triggered by both movement or timer, for
instance, the mobile device updates the current location to the network when it moves into the
new location or the timer is expired.
Handover. When the device is in dedicated mode, in order to maintain the connection
session, handover must be performed when the device move from one coverage area of one
access point to another. The length of time which is used to perform handover is critical to
maintain the quality of the communication especially in an interactive session.
Rerouting. After a handover procedure, the traffic path in the network often is sub optimal.
Then rerouting may be done after the handover to optimize the traffic path. Since the
handover is done, the rerouting process is no more time-critical.

2.2 GPRS in Mobility Management Framework

The General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a new non-voice value added service that allows
information to be sent and received across a mobile telephone network. GPRS is an
enhancement over the GSM by adding some nodes into the network to provide the packet
switch services. In our framework, GPRS is mapped to the continuous mobility use case
because it uses the same infrastructure as the GSM cellular network and the GPRS system
provides link layer mobility. The GPRS provides also personal mobility through the use of the
Subscriber Identity Module (SIM), in which the user identity is stored, and SIM card can be
inserted into any GPRS device. Consequently the GPRS provides both device mobility in the
link layer and personal mobility through the use of SIM card.
The key mobility management functions in our framework are also implemented in GPRS.
When the GPRS device is switched on, it performs registration or attach procedure to the
network. Location update is done to inform its current location to the network, when the
device moves into the new location. If there is any data packet sent to the device while the
device is in standby mode, paging procedure is required to retrieve the current cell onto which
the device has camped. During active communication, handovers are performed whenever
needed to maintain the session and if the traffic routing in the core network after the handover
procedures is sub optimal, rerouting can be done.

3. GPRS MOBILITY MANAGEMENT

The General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a new nonvoice value added service that allows
information to be sent and received across a mobile telephone network [11]. It supplements
today's Circuit Switched Data and Short Message Service. GPRS has several unique features
which can be summarized as:

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SPEED
Theoretical maximum speeds of up to 171.2 kilobits per second (kbps) are achievable with
GPRS using all eight timeslots at the same time. This is about three times as fast as the data
transmission speeds possible over today's fixed telecommunications networks and ten times as
fast as current Circuit Switched Data services on GSM networks. By allowing information to
be transmitted more quickly, immediately and efficiently across the mobile network, GPRS
may well be a relatively less costly mobile data service compared to SMS and Circuit
Switched Data.

IMMEDIACY
GPRS facilitates instant connections whereby information can be sent or received
immediately as the need arises, subject to radio coverage. No dial-up modem connection is
necessary. This is why GPRS users are sometimes referred to be as being "always connected".
Immediacy is one of the advantages of GPRS (and SMS) when compared to Circuit Switched
Data. High immediacy is a very important feature for time critical applications such as remote
credit card authorization where it would be unacceptable to keep the customer waiting for
even thirty extra seconds.

PACKET SWITCHING
GPRS involves overlaying a packet based air interface on the existing circuit switched GSM
network. This gives the user an option to use a packet-based data service. To supplement a
circuit switched network architecture with packet switching is quite a major upgrade.
However, as we shall see later, the GPRS standard is delivered in a very elegant manner- with
network operators needing only to add a couple of new infrastructure nodes and making a
software upgrade to some existing network elements.
With GPRS, the information is split into separate but related "packets" before being
transmitted and reassembled at the receiving end. The Internet itself is another example of a
packet data network, the most famous of many such network types.

SPECTRUM EFFICIENCY
Packet switching means that GPRS radio resources are used only when users are actually
sending or receiving data. Rather than dedicating a radio channel to a mobile data user for a
fixed period of time, the available radio resource can be concurrently shared between several
users. This efficient use of scarce radio resources means that large numbers of GPRS users
can potentially share the same bandwidth and be served from a single cell. The actual number
of users supported depends on the application being used and how much data is being
transferred. Because of the spectrum efficiency of GPRS, there is less need to build in idle
capacity that is only used in peak hours. GPRS therefore lets network operators maximize the
use of their network resources in a dynamic and flexible way, along with user access to
resources and revenues.

3.1 GPRS System Architecture

In order to integrate GPRS into the existing GSM architecture, two new GPRS Support
Nodes, a Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN) and a Gateway GPRS Support node (GGSN)
have been introduced (See Figure 1).

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 Figure 1 – GPRS System Architecture. [9]

The SGSNs can be viewed as a "packet-switched MSC;" it delivers packets to mobile stations
(MSs) within its service area. SGSNs send queries to home location registers (HLRs) to
obtain profile data of GPRS subscribers. SGSNs detect new GPRS MSs in a given service
area, process registration of new mobile subscribers, and keep a record of their location inside
a given area. Therefore, the SGSN performs mobility management functions such as mobile
subscriber attach/detach and location management. The SGSN is connected to the base-station
subsystem via a Frame Relay connection to the PCU in the BSC.
The GGSNs are used as interfaces to external IP networks such as the public Internet, other
mobile service providers' GPRS services, or enterprise intranets. GGSNs maintain routing
information that is necessary to tunnel the protocol data units (PDUs) to the SGSNs that
service particular MSs. Other functions include network and subscriber screening and address
mapping. One (or more) GGSNs may be provided to support multiple SGSNs.
In general, the relationship between the SGSNs and the GGSNs is many-to-many because a
SGSN may route the data packets over the several GGSNs in order to reach the different
packet data network and a GGSN can be an interface to external data packet network for
several SGSNs. The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) has defined
the interfaces between the new GPRS network nodes and the GSM network nodes in GSM
03.02 Network Architecture (See Figure 1).
All GSNs are connected via interfaces and by using GPRS Tunneling Protocol (GTP) GSNs
exchange the data by transmit the encapsulated PDN packets through the IP-based GPRS
backbone Network. There are two kinds of GPRS backbones; Intra-PLMN backbone network
which connects GSNs of the same PLMN and Inter-PLMN backbone network which connect
GSNs of the different PLMNs.

3.2 GPRS Session Management

The function of the session management is to support PDP context handling of the user
terminal. After a successfully attach of the MS, a PDP context is created describing the
characteristics of the session. To exchange packet with external Packet Data Networks
(PDNs) a mobile station must apply for one or more addresses used in the PDN. These
addresses are called PDP addresses. Each PDP address is described by one or more PDP
contexts in the MS or the Network.

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 3.2.1 Attach, Detach Procedure
Before the mobile station can use the GPRS Service, first the mobile station must register
with the SGSN of the GPRS Network. The network checks for authorization of the user,
copies the user profile from HLR database to the SGSN and assign the packet temporary
mobile subscriber identity (P-TMSI) to the user. This procedure is called GPRS attach. The
disconnection from the GPRS network is called GPRS detach.

3.2.2 PDP Context Activation, Deactivation Procedure

After a successful GPRS attach process, data packets still cannot be routed in GPRS because
no address is assigned to the mobile station. This address is called PDP address (Packet Data
Protocol Address), e.g., IP address in case the PDN is an IP network. The procedure to create
PDP context is shown in Figure 2. For each session, a so-called PDP context is created which
contains PDP type, PDP address assigned to the mobile station, the requested QoS, and the
address of GGSN that serves as the access point to the PDN. This context is distributed and
stored in MS, SGSN, and GGSN. In the other way, the PDP context deactivation procedure is
called to deactivate an existing PDP context between the MS and the network. After
deactivation, no data transfer is anymore possible.

Figure 2 – PDU Context Activation. [9]

3.3 GPRS Mobility Management

The main task of the mobility management is to keep track of the user’s current location. The
MS sends the location update message to the SGSN so that the network can be always aware
of the current location of the MS. There are three states exist in the GPRS mobility
management (see figure 3) and the different location information is available in each state. As
a result, the different mobility management strategies are applied in the different states.

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 3.3.1 State Model
By Performing a GPRS attach, the MS gets into READY state and if the MS does not transmit
any packet for a long period of time until the READY timer is expired, the MS will get into
STANDBY state. It is possible to transmit data only if the MS is in READY state, thus the
MS in STANDBY state can switch back to the READY state, if a PDU transmission occurs
and in the same way, at READY state if the GPRS detach is performed, the MS will be back
into IDLE state and all PDP context will be deleted. The GPRS state model is shown in
Figure 3.

Figure 3 – State Model of GPRS Mobile Station. [9]

In the STANDBY state, the MS sends the location update message seldom, so its location is
not known exactly and the paging is necessary for every downlink packet, resulting in a
significant delivery delay. In the READY state, the MS updates its location frequently.
Consequently the MS’s location is known precisely and no paging delay during delivery
downlink packet. However this consumes much more the uplink radio capacity and battery of
the MS.

3.3.2 Location Update

The State Model of GPRS Mobile Station deploys an appropriate location update strategy in
order to maintain the optimum network capacity as well as the MS battery drain. Figure 4
shows the fundamental concept of network cell-structure. Cell is the coverage area of the
radio transmission of base station (BS). Location Area (LA) and Routing Area (RA) consist of
one or several cells and RA is always in one LA. When MS crosses LA border, a location
update and RA update shall be done. In case MS moves within the same LA but crosses
different RA, the RA update is needed. When the MS moves within the same LA and RA, cell
update may be needed. It depends on the current state of the MS.
The first case, that the MS updates the location every cell change, is used in READY state.
This strategy ensures that the accurate location of the MS is always known and packet data
can be delivered faster as no paging procedure is necessary. However the MS battery is
drained more and uplink radio capacity is wasted for cell updates.
The second case, used in STANDBY state, is that the MS updates the location only when the
MS moves to a new routing area (RA). In this strategy, when data packet is sent to the MS,

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paging is required in order to find out the current location of the MS. Thus, uplink capacity
will be wasted for paging response and every downlink packet requires paging of the mobile
delay.

Figure 4 – Cell, Routing Area and Location Area.

3.3.3 RA Update
Whenever the MS moves to a new RA, it sends a routing area update request including the
routing area identity (RAI) of the old RA to its assigned SGSN. When the message arrives at
the base station subsystem (BSS), the BSS adds the cell identifier (CI) of the new cell. Based
on the RAI and CI data, the SGSN can derived the new RAI. Two different cases are possible;
Intra-SGSN and Inter-SGSN routing area update.
Intra-SGSN routing area update: The MS has moved to an RA, assigned to the same SGSN as
the old RA. In this case, the SGSN knows already all necessary user profile, and can assign a
new packet temporary mobile subscriber identity (P-TMSI) to the user without the need to
inform other network elements. Figure 5 shows the message exchange diagram of the Intra-
SGSN routing area update.

Figure 5 – Intra-SGSN routing are update. [9]

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Inter-SGSN routing area update: In this case, the MS has moved to an RA, assigned to a
different SGSN, thus, the new SGSN does not have the user profile of the MS. The SGSN
contacts the old SGSN and requests the PDP context of the user. After receiving the PDP
context of the user, the new SGSN informs the involved network elements, such as the GGSN
about the new PDP context of the user, and the HLR about the user’s new SGSN, etc. Figure
6 shows the message exchange diagram of the Inter-SGSN routing area update.

Figure 6 – Inter-SGSN routing area update.

3.3.4 Cell Reselection

When Mobile Station is in IDLE state, if the MS initiates attach procedure and the currently
camped-on cell already supports GPRS then no cell reselection is required. On the other hand,
if the currently camped-on cell does not support GPRS then a reselection procedure is
required before execution of GPRS attach procedure.
When MS is in STANDBY and READY state, it continuously monitors the surrounding cells.
If the more suitable cell is found, a cell reselection procedure is performed. The cell
reselection procedure in this case can be helpful to minimize the cell changes. Besides, when
the MS moves to a new location, the cell reselection is needed to select a new cell most
appropriate to the new location.
While MS is in dedicated mode, then the changes from one cell to another is performed
according to the network-controlled handover procedures.

3.3.5 Paging of GPRS Mobile Station

When the MS is in STANDBY state, the network does not know the precise location of MS,
thus paging procedure is required to retrieve the accurate cell on which the MS has camped.
The MS in STANDBY state is paged by the SGSN before a downlink transfer to that MS. The
paging procedure cause the MS to move to READY state to allow the SGSN to forward
downlink data to the radio resource. The SGSN supervises the paging procedure with a timer.
If the SGSN receives no response from the MS to the Paging Request message, the SGSN
will repeat the paging. Figure 7 demonstrates the message exchange in the Paging procedure.

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 Figure 7 – GPRS Paging Procedure.

4. USER MOBILITY INVESTIGATION

Understanding the traffic characteristic in mobile communication is highly useful in planning,
designing and operating cellular networks. In a mobile cellular network, a handover is
performed every time when the user crosses from one cell to another while communication,
thus the network characteristics depend on the user mobility. The mobility pattern has been
investigated in different ways. In this section we explain the following user mobility
investigation methods; the investigation by analytical method with mathematical formulation,
by measuring geographic position, and by exploring trace data in cellular network.

4.1 Investigation by Mathematical Formulation and Analytical Method

The paper of M. M. Zonoozi and P. Dassanayake [4], the mobility patterns is analytically
investigated by mathematical formulation. First a system tracking of the random movement of
a mobile station in a cellular environment is formulated mathematically. Based on this
formulation, a model is developed to obtained different mobility-related parameters under
generalized case. The proposed model is used to characterize different mobility related traffic
parameters in cellular mobile communication systems including cell resident time, channel
holding time, and average number of handovers. The results show that the generalized gamma
distribution is adequate to describe the cell residence time distribution and the negative
exponential distribution is a good approximation for the channel holding time distribution in
cellular mobile systems. The increase and decrease in speed of the mobile in the cell can be
treated as the decrease and increase in cell size respectively.
The investigation approach and the results above show that mathematical formulation can be
used to create the model to describe the mobility pattern in mobile cellular network under the
given assumptions. However, it is questionable if the given assumptions are always correct.
As a results, the models from this investigation method are probably unrealistic. The better
model can be found by measurement.

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4.2 Investigation by Measuring Geographic Position
In [5] the teletraffic characteristics are investigated based on measuring geographic position.
In the paper, speed and cell dwell time distributions and transition probability for taxis in
large- and small-city regions are analyzed. The simulation are used to evaluate differences in
the traffic characteristics of handover rate and failed communications probability between
these two regions by computing the mapping of collected movement patterns on hypothetical
cell structures.
The measured data consists of collected position information of taxi movement in large and
small cities. This data was gathered by using Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver on the
taxi. The measurement is done in the large city, Yokohama and the small-city, Yokosuka.
Figure 8 represents the census and other data characterizing the difference between
Yokohama, and Yokosuka. With GPS receiver, the movement position of the taxi has been
gathered and the vehicle loci (shown in Figure 9) have been generated.

Figure 8 – Census and other data characterizing the difference between Yokohama (large
city) and Yokosuka (small city) as of 1995. [5]

Figure 9 – The measured loci of the taxis. (a) Yokohama (large city) and (b) Yokosuka
(small city). [5]

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 Figure 10 – Overlay of hypothetical cells on the vehicle loci. [6]

The cell dwell time, the period from the time a vehicle enters a certain cell to the time it
leaves that cell, is computed by overlaying hypothetical cells (see figure 10) on the vehicle
loci. Figure 11,12 show the cumulative distribution of vehicle speed cell dwell times of
vehicles computed based on the measured locations and the hypothetical cell structure. It was
found out that the difference in the cell dwell time distribution for the large- and small-city is
small due to small a difference in the speed distribution.

Figure 11 – Cumulative distribution of vehicle speed .[5]

In addition, handover rate and failed communication probability are calculated on the basis of
simulations [5] with the cell dwell time distribution. Again it was found out that the difference in
the handover rate and the failed communication probability between large and small cities is
small.

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 Figure 12 – Cumulative distribution of cell dwell time.[5]

Another similar example of mobility investigation by measuring geographic position has been
done in “teletraffic characteristics of cellular communication for different types of vehicle”
[6]. In this paper, the geographic position has been measured from four types of vehicle (inter-
city buses, recreational vehicle, freight trucks, and taxi) with mounted GPS receiver. By
overlaying hypothetical cells, the cell cross-over rate, which is the number of times a vehicle
crosses cell boundaries per hour, and the cell-dwell-time are determined. The results are
shown in Figure 13 and 14. The cell cross-over rate varies according to the vehicle type, but is
inversely proportional to cell size. The cell dwell time is approximated well by a log-normal
distribution, with a mean and standard deviation that depend on the characteristics of speed
and direction in the motion of vehicle type [6]. To obtain a handover rate and cell dwell time
for the communication terminals, the communication holding time is taken into account and
the same method as in [10] is applied.

Figure 13 Cell cross-over rate for the four types of

vehicles. [6]

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 Figure 14 Cell dwell time for the four types of vehicles
plotted on log-normal-distribution paper. [6]

Figure 15 shows the result of taking holding time into consideration and evaluating handover
rate. The handover rate of four types of vehicles is decreased in this order: inter-city buses,
RVs, freight trucks, and taxis, which is the same order as in the cell cross-over rate of the
vehicle, when communication were not taken into consideration (Figure 13). Based on Figure
16 and 17, it can be concluded that the cell dwell time during communications mainly
depends on the motion of the vehicle when the cells are small. When the cells are large, the
cell dwell time depends on the holding time distribution.

Figure 15- Handover rate for the four types of vehicles. [6]

In conclusion, measuring geographic position is a method to investigate user mobility. The

investigation is done by using GPS receiver to gather the measured data and by simulating
cell dwell time and handover based on hypothetical cell layout. However, the realization level
of the model obtained from this method depends on the simulation. Besides, it might be
difficult to mount GPS devices on many vehicles.

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Figure 16 – Cell dwell time distribution for communicating terminals
when the cell size is 100m. [6]

Figure 17 – Cell dwell time distribution for communicating terminals

when the cell size is 10,000m. [6]

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4.3 Investigation by Exploring Trace data in Cellular Network

The investigation by exploring trace data in cellular network is used for teletraffic
characterization in paper [7] and [8]. In the paper of S. Thajchayapong and J. M. Peha [8], the
data examined in this paper was measured from the Wireless Andrew network, the enterprise-
wide broadband micro-cellular wireless network that blankets the CMU campus. In the
network, there were approximately 90 access points covering 6 buildings and approximately
100 users. The data packets associated with every sign-on or handover were captured along
with the timestamp and they focused on only the sign-on and handover data of mobile device.
The sign-on interval time, the time between a sign-on and the previous sign-on, and the dwell
time, the time between a handover and the previous handover or sign-on, are examined from
the trace data.
The raw trace data is analyzed and the descriptive statistic dwell data and the cumulative
distribution function (CFD) of dwell time are shown in Figure 18. In Figure 19, Pareto and
Exponential distribution methods are applied on the distribution of dwell time to find closed-
form expressions of the distribution dwell time, the estimation of the distribution of dwell
time (in seconds and minutes) and the predictions of dwell time. Based on figure 19, the
Pareto distribution yields a lower error than the exponential. As a result, the Pareto is the
suitable distribution.
Similar to analysis of dwell time, Pareto distribution and Exponential distribution are also
used in sign-on interval and handover rate analysis.

Figure 18 Descriptive Statistics of Dwell data and CDF of Dwell time.[8]

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Figure 19 the estimation of the distribution of dwell time (in seconds and minutes) and the predictions of dwell
time. [8]

In summary, user mobility investigation can be done by exploring trace data of the network.
Trace data exploring is separated into 2 processes; data collection and data analysis. In data
collection process, trace data source and the preparation of the trace data are taken into
consideration. For example, in [8] the data was gathered from the access points in Andrew
Network. The data packets associated with every sign-on or handoff were captured along with a
timestamp. In data analysis process, mathematical methods and data analysis techniques are
utilized in order to recognize the estimation and prediction of the network characteristics. The
Pareto and Exponential distribution are used in [8] and the results show that Pareto is an
appropriate distribution because it yields less error than Exponential distribution. The results of
user mobility investigation by using this method are more realistic because the real measured
data has been examined. The results of this investigation method are, however, themself
particular to only specific network, for instance a network provider that provides the network
services to business customers and a network provider that provides services to general
customers. The results from the data obtained from these two network providers might be
different. Therefore, the problem for this approach is that the result of the data obtained from one
network may be particular to that specific network. Another possible problem is that the trace
data is unobtainable in some cases.

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5. CONCLUSION
Mobility management plays a significant role in GPRS, the new cellular wireless network
standard. In this paper, we explore how the GPRS mobility is settled on the concept of mobility
in mobile communication. To understand the mobility of GPRS, we define the mobile
communication mobility framework. In our framework, we have examined three different
angles of the mobility: use cases, realization, and functionality. Three different mobility use
cases can be identified: static, nomadic, and continuous mobility. The users of cellular
networks (e.g., GSM, GPRS) experience continuous mobility model today because they are
always connected to the network and reachable while on the move. In relation to the
framework, GPRS provides personal mobility through the use of Subscriber Identity Module
(SIM), and device mobility in the link layer. We have given the definitions of the common key
functions in mobility management, such as registration, paging, location update, handover and
rerouting. The GPRS standard also supports the mobility management functionality defined in
the framework.
Understanding the traffic characteristic in mobile communication is highly useful in planning,
designing and operating cellular networks. In mobile cellular network, handover is performed
every time when user crosses cell boundary to another cell while communication. As a result,
the network characteristics depend on user mobility. We have presented three different
approaches to investigate user mobility. Applying analytical investigation with mathematical
formulation is the first possible method, however if a wrong assumption is given, the results
may be unrealistic. The second method mentioned in this paper is the investigation by
measuring geographic position. The measured data in the simulation can be obtained by using
GPS receiver mounted to the vehicle. The traffic characteristic parameters can be computed by
overlaying hypothetical cells on the vehicle loci. The problem in this approach remains in the
simulation to get the result close to the realistic user mobility. The last mobility investigation
technique, addressed in this paper, is the investigation by exploring cellular movement data.
The data packets associated to the traffic characteristics like sign-in and handover can be
obtained from the network access point. This is different from the previous approaches,
because the measured data is collected from the actual movement of users. The advantage of
this method is that the results are based on realistic measured data, however the results are
particular to the specific network. In addition, since the trace data is a private information of
the network providers, it is impossible in some cases to obtain the data.

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