Nokia Networks

Business aware traffic

steering

Nokia Networks white paper

Business aware traffic steering
 Contents

1. Executive Summary 3
2.  tatic load or QoS-based traffic steering
S 3
alone is no longer enough
2.1 T
 owards more comprehensive traffic 4
steering
3.  raffic Steering evolves to combine network
T 5
resources, services used and customer
insights to maximize customer value
3.1 A
 structured approach to dynamic 6
traffic steering
3.2 T
 raffic steering enforcement from the 6
core network
3.3 M
 anagement of traffic steering by the 7
OSS
3.4 D
 ynamic traffic steering between 8
cellular and Wi-Fi networks
3.5 M
 anagement of traffic steering by the 8
OSS
4.  okia Traffic Steering vision – a
N 9
comprehensive solution
4.1 D
 ynamic Experience Management 9
for optimal treatment of individual
application session
4.2 C
 entralized CEM and OSS with Dynamic 11
Experience Management
5. Conclusion 14
6. Abbreviations 15

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1. Executive Summary
Simply put, the role of traffic steering is to automatically distribute
traffic and subscribers across a heterogeneous network (HetNet) for
maximum business value. Some objectives for traffic steering that will
address this aim include:
1. G
 etting more out of existing infrastructure: making investments
work harder to maximize revenues through personalization.
2. A
 utomate operations: orchestrate traffic steering with no
manual work and automate workflow with centralized traffic
steering management.
To do that, radio capabilities need to be enriched with dynamic
real-time analytics and action engines as well as complemented
with centralized management layer monitoring and coordination
functionality.

2. Static load or QoS-based traffic

steering alone is no longer enough
The vast majority of operators are already using some kind of traffic
steering. Some use radio network features to balance users and
traffic between different frequency bands and different radio access
load balancing technologies. Meanwhile, there is growing use of
Quality of Service (QoS) for maximum business impact. However, the
implementations are often rather static, local in one domain, or require
a fair amount of manual work.
Increasing network complexity and unpredictable traffic growth are
forcing operators to plan ahead. How long will static or manually
controlled traffic steering be enough and when is a more dynamic and
automated approach required?
Operators promoting customer experience management are looking
to automate traffic steering to gain further Operational Expenditure
(OPEX) efficiency and simplification.

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2.1 Towards more comprehensive
traffic steering
Operators in different markets have varying needs for traffic
steering based on location, time and event. The need for new or
improved tools to plan, design and track traffic in real time is surging.
Conventionally, traffic steering based on 3GPP specifications has
focused on QoS and load balancing. It has been based on current cell
load or, more recently, on factors such as energy saving or different
treatment of service classes. Implemented in the radio and core,
traffic steering has been performed using fixed parameters and
thresholds to direct devices to an appropriate cell. However, traffic
patterns change constantly and these fixed settings quickly become
out of date leading to a decline in the effectiveness of traffic steering.

The demand for ever more capacity to carry growing data traffic is
being met by the deployment of LTE networks and small cells. This
calls for effective ways to balance traffic between the radio access
layers to optimize the user experience. In addition, Wi-Fi is becoming
a vital complement to cellular networks and new tools are needed to
manage how devices access and use mobile and Wi-Fi in a way that
matches an operator’s business strategy.
As more traffic steering capabilities are implemented to handle
subscribers’ use of the HetNet’s many layers and accesses, a better
way to coordinate traffic steering policies can avoid conflicting control
priorities. Also, the widespread deployment of Single Radio Access
Network (RAN) will call for traffic management supported by integrated
Operations Support System (OSS) applications and workflows.
Furthermore, conventional traffic steering or load balancing
techniques do not take into account the customer experience or the
value of the subscriber to the operator. With more advanced traffic
steering, operators would not only be able to make use of all their
network resources to the maximum, but be able to differentiate
between customers and deliver the right customer experience. An
analogy is how airlines are able to differentiate between customers
and can offer upgrades from an overbooked economy class on a flight,
to business class, based on customer value.
The emphasis has now shifted from managing Quality of Service (QoS)
to managing the Quality of Experience (QoE) actually perceived by
the subscriber. That’s because QoS Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
gathered at the transport/radio network layer are application agnostic,
while high-level QoE KPIs and other metrics like Mean Opinion Score
do not provide sufficient detail to enable immediate action to improve

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the QoE of individual subscribers. One of the most promising and
innovative ways to address the issue is to apply big data analytics
to constantly sense and optimize the QoE of individual subscriber
sessions under dynamically changing conditions. The necessary
actions can then be applied automatically while the subscriber session
is still live.

3  Performance with Multiflow

A more advanced model for traffic steering is based on a technical
evaluation of the most appropriate network and services, combined
with customer experience-based traffic steering enforcement. This
would enable operators to use all their network investments more
efficiently, to give customers a better quality of experience, and to
deliver the best personalized service experience possible to optimize
the value of the entire customer base.
This requires traffic steering to be executed in the radio access
network together with the core network and management systems
such as the OSS and the Customer Experience Management
Figure
(CEM) 1: Traffic steering functions in different levels.
system.

Network wide Traffic Steering monitoring, execution coordination and automation

Traffic steering target & CEM Execution coordination over all

treatment police settings Customer insights & service network layers & domains
quality monitoring

User Equipment Radio Access Network Core Network

2.4 Wi-Fi Idle & active Business policy
5 mode control execution
GHz Femto

(2G) Load balancing Subscription policy

management
Pico
3G
LTE Micro
Bands Nework insights QoS management
Macro

Capabilities, measurements,
Traffic Steering execution Traffic Steering execution Traffic Steering enforcement

Fig.
1
1. Traffic©steering functions in different levels.
Nokia Solutions and Networks 2014
Confidential

Orchestrations of traffic steering are also needed to ensure all

components and automated operations like Self Organizing Networks
Core and background colors:

(SON), work together effectively and to avoid conflicts between

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B 145 B 255 B 122 B 192 B 218

different traffic steering priorities, such as load versus customer value.

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3 .1 A structured approach to dynamic
traffic steering
While traffic steering is always executed in the radio access network,
the enforcement of traffic steering can be controlled from the radio
access network and from the core network.
Traffic steering in the RAN is executed in both Idle and Active modes.
In Idle mode, subscriber devices are distributed across different
radio access technologies or across carriers within the same radio
technology to make best use of network resources without creating
unnecessary signaling or handovers, and to deliver a good customer
experience. For example, providing there is sufficient capacity in the
network, premium data users may be allocated to LTE or 3G by default,
while users who mainly make voice calls are allocated to the 2G layer.
Also, Wi-Fi may be promoted to heavy data users or home usage
according to the operator’s business strategy.
In Active mode, the load on the network is balanced to minimize
congestion and achieve the highest utilization of network resources.
This is done by firstly triggering handovers in which subscribers are
passed to a more lightly loaded carrier. Should this measure be unable
to avoid network congestion or maintain a set service level, devices
are handed to another, less congested Radio Access Technology (RAT),
providing the required service level performance is met.

3 .2 Traffic steering enforcement from the

core network
The core network works in parallel to enforce different traffic steering
policies according to network or subscriber insights provided by
centralized monitoring tools. This enables specific services or
subscribers to be steered to a particular radio access, including
Wi-Fi. The result is more dynamic traffic steering according to the
user profile and operator business strategy, enabling personalized
treatment for a specific customer segment or application. For
example, Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (ANDSF)
can be used to offload selected users to approved Wi-Fi networks.

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The necessary insights that support such personalized traffic steering
come from the operator’s CEM analytics platform and from a Dynamic
Experience Management (DEM) function. DEM is applying big data
analytics to constantly sense and optimize the QoE of individual user
sessions in dynamically changing conditions. Necessary actions are
automatically applied during the “window of opportunity” when they
matter to the end-user’s session.

3 .3 Management of traffic steering by

the OSS
With the RAN able to run several traffic steering mechanisms, there is
potential for conflicting configurations to arise. A network-wide OSS
system is best placed to ensure such conflicts are avoided and to
introduce more automated and more dynamic configuration of traffic
steering. The radio must also be able to consider traffic class or user
priority when load balancing is triggered. OSS-level management of
traffic steering comprises several functions including configuration,
monitoring, reporting, workflow/process engine, automation,
orchestration of traffic steering actions and centralized SON functions.
OSS management of traffic steering also enables a much higher
level of personalization of the customer experience. Customer
segmentation information from CEM systems can be used by the OSS
to further govern traffic steering policies.
OSS monitoring and reporting also provide the operator with
information on how traffic steering affects the network, as well as
insights into service quality before and after traffic steering features
are activated across the network layers.

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3 .4 Dynamic traffic steering between cellular
and Wi-Fi networks
Mobile broadband operators are increasingly looking to integrate Wi-Fi
access with their cellular networks to add capacity or coverage. Wi-Fi
offers a ready-made device ecosystem, as nearly all smartphones and
tablets have the technology built-in, so there is no need to invest in
user devices. These operators therefore need dynamic tools to control
when and where devices use the cellular and Wi-Fi layers.

Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (ANDSF) is a

device-based steering method that enables an operator to decide
on the steering rules for subscriber groups or individual subscribers
depending on parameters such as time, location and application being
used. ANDSF is best suited to non-real-time Wi-Fi traffic steering,
reflecting pre-defined traffic patterns and requires either native or
client-based support in the terminals.
Such device-based steering can be complemented by network-based
steering that can direct traffic from any smart devices, whether or not
they have ANDSF inside. This method offers dynamic, real-time traffic
steering capabilities using triggers specified by the operator, such
as 3G cell congestion or traffic classes requiring different quality of
service.

3 .5 An evolutionary approach to business

aware traffic steering
Across the market, operators are at different stages of implementing
traffic steering. It therefore makes sense to adopt an evolutionary
approach to achieving more advanced traffic steering. The first stage
is to make the most effective use of radio resources. Then move from
network operations to service operations. Then provide top service
for high value customers using customer experience information in an
automated, real time analytics and action execution loop.

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4. Nokia Traffic Steering vision – a
comprehensive solution
4.1 Dynamic Experience Management
for optimal treatment of individual
application session
Dynamic Experience Management (DEM), an innovation from Nokia
Networks FutureWorks, combines newly developed telco-scale big data
analytics, artificial intelligence and full process automation to make
experience management dynamic.
DEM optimizes each subscriber’s application session to deliver high
QoE to almost 100% of all sessions, even under high loads. This
cannot be achieved by current static traffic steering methods because
an automated, immediate and iterative loop between analytics,
decision and optimization has been missing.
The QoE enhancements can be achieved by an intelligent analytics
and decision engine that in real time pinpoints the cause of issues in
a subscriber’s application session and decides automatically on the
best corrective action. Machine learning techniques ensure ever more
accurate decisions over time even when data is incomplete or new
situations arise.
Full process automation is then applied to immediately implement the
appropriate action, such as service adaption or traffic steering.
DEM involves Customer Experience Agents (CEA) deployed in LTE and
WCDMA radio networks and an Analytics Decision and Action (ADA)
server in the core network to run the necessary session-specific traffic
treatment in real time. CEAs perform the accurate QoE measurements
for every session and application. Information is shared with the ADA
server, which can then predict the service degradation within minutes
or even seconds . Based on this analysis and pre-defined traffic
priorities, the ADA server decides on and executes the necessary
traffic steering actions.

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 Figure 2: Nokia Dynamic Experience Management architecture (toinen kuvista valitaan)
Part 1
Network wide Traffic Steering monitoring, execution coordination and automation

Traffic steering target & CEM Execution coordination over all

treatment police settings Customer insights & service network layers & domains
quality monitoring

User Equipment Radio Access Network Core Network

Idle & active Analytics Decision
mode control & Action server
Customer Business policy execution
Experience Load balancing
Agents
Subscription policy management
Figure 2: Nokia Dynamic Experience Management architecture (toinen kuvista valitaan)
Nework insights
Part 2 QoS management
Capabilities, measurements,
Traffic Steering execution Traffic Steering execution Traffic Steering enforcement

1 © Nokia Solutions and Networks 2014

Confidential

BTS SAE-GW
Core and background colors:

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G 65 G 201 G 113 G 187 G 217
B 145 B 255 B 122 B 192 B 218

Devices CEA ADA Internet

MME OSS & CEM

HSS

Fig. 2. Nokia Dynamic Experience Management architecture

1 © Nokia Solutions and Networks 2014

Confidential

Core and background colors:

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G 65 G 201 G 113 G 187 G 217
B 145 B 255 B 122 B 192 B 218

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4.2 Centralized CEM and OSS with Dynamic
Experience Management
With centralized traffic steering management, operators are able to:
1. O
 btain a consolidated view of the status of all radio network
layers, core network gateways, defined traffic prioritization
policies, and traffic steering features in use on each radio layer,
including settings and KPIs.
2. S
 et and activate traffic steering policies. Rules can include traffic
steering area, customer prioritization, service quality, network
quality and customer experience triggers and what kind of traffic
steering actions are executed according to different triggers.
3. T
 ake traffic steering strategies into action. Prioritization of the
order of different types of traffic steering rules that have been
set up.
4. A
 lign and optimize radio network traffic steering and load
balancing features with overall traffic steering strategies.
5. M
 onitor the impact of traffic steering: the network usage across
all layers, for example, and the customer experience or the
revenue impact of active traffic steering rules.
6. S
 ee the log of different traffic steering, SON operations and
actions in specific areas.
Centralized management ensures that dynamic traffic steering creates
business value by maintaining network performance, service quality
and customer experience, and lifetime value at optimal levels, despite
unexpected spikes in demand. After deciding on the traffic steering
strategies and setting related rules, the actual traffic steering is done
automatically and real time with DEM, constantly fine-tuning the
parameters and configuration in the network and devices according to
the current traffic situation.

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Traffic steering related radio features are typically 3GPP specified (like
LTE Mobility Load Balancing (MLB), QoS etc). Centralized coordination of
traffic steering will connect the radio features to operators’ processes
Figure
for 3: Centralized
optimizing trafficvalue
customer lifetime steering functions
and network with
usage Dynamic
to achieve the Experience Management
right business value.

Network wide Traffic Steering monitoring, execution coordination and automation

Traffic steering target & CEM Customer insights & service Execution coordination over
treatment policy settings quality monitoring all network layers & domains

Definition of subscribers for high Customer experience monitoring Device vs network driven
priority treatment and analysis traffic steering coordination

Definition applications for high Service performance Load balancing coordination

priority treatment monitoring and analysis across radio layers

Definition of role of each radio Radio and core consistent

layer QoS treatment

Alignment of all automated

operations, DEM and SON etc

Fig.
1 3. Centralized trafficandsteering
© Nokia Solutions functions with Dynamic Experience
Networks 2014
Confidential
Management

Setting the traffic steering targets is a necessary coordination function

Core and background colors:

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with DEM. With the increasing variety of services/applications on offer in

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B 145
G 201
B 255
G 113
B 122
G 187
B 192
G 217
B 218

mobile networks and with Service Level Agreement (SLA) commitments to

selected subscriber groups, it is essential to define consistently, from one
place, the traffic treatment targets and policies for all involved domains -
network, subscription, device and application management levels.

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With DEM, the role of CEM functions with customer experience and
service quality insights become crucial. Easy and informative
methods are offered for near real-time viewing of customer insight
reports. For off-line analytics and future planning, historical data
about insights is also needed. The customer experience analytics are
also complemented with service/application performance monitoring
so that all high priority traffic can be seen from one view. CEM can
also efficiently monitor DEM performance in real-time intelligent
traffic steering.
Execution coordination over all available, alternative traffic treatment
methods and radio network optimization capabilities also has a central
role. Once DEM is deployed and taken into use in certain parts of the
network or certain technologies, there is a need to adjust the other
3GPP based load balancing and traffic steering functions in
LTE, WCDMA and GSM radio layers to avoid conflicts. It is also
possible to execute load balancing between Wi-Fi and cellular layers
using device driven methods. If this is used together with network
driven Wi-Fi, then cellular traffic steering coordination is again needed.
The automated SON operations executed in real time in network
elements or, as needed, at the network management level, may
also interfere or conflict with dynamic traffic steering. Therefore,
the network-wide centralized coordination also covers the seamless
alignment between SON and all traffic steering functions, from the
same shared user interface.

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5. Conclusion
Traffic steering is growing in importance as HetNets, with their use of
diverse radio technologies, become more widespread. The challenge
for operators is that conventional traffic steering or load balancing
techniques do not take into account the customer experience or the
value of the subscriber to the operator.
A more advanced model for traffic steering is based on a technical
evaluation of the most appropriate network and services, combined
with customer experience-based enforcement of traffic steering. This
would enable operators to use all their network investments more
efficiently, to give customers a better quality of experience and to
deliver personalized service experience to optimize the value of the
entire customer base.
Nokia Networks offers a comprehensive portfolio of solutions and
services that allow operators to plan strategy and solutions, deploy
and optimize solutions, and maintain them at peak efficiency.

Page 14 networks.nokia.com
6. Abbreviations
3GPP Third Generation Partnership Project
ADA Analytics Decision and Action
ANDSF Access Network Discovery and Selection Function
CEM Customer Experience Management
DEM Dynamic Experience Management
HetNet Heterogeneous Network
KPI Key Performance Indicator
MLB Mobility Load Balancing
OPEX Operational Expenditure
OSS Operations Support System
QoE Quality of Experience
QoS Quality of Service
RAN Radio Access Network
RAT Radio Access Technology
SON Self Organizing Networks
SRAN Single Radio Access Network

Page 15 networks.nokia.com
Public
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© Nokia Solutions and Networks 2014

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