Prospects for WLAN in the Evolved Packet Core Environment

The number of mobile devices, such as smartphones, netbooks, notebooks, etc. will increase in the next few years and with the availability of Long Term Evolution (LTE) capable devices and networks the data rates are increasing. As a result of this, the data traffic volume will massively increase by 2015 and therefore the core and access networks have to be offloaded. Beside femtocell offloading solutions, Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) could be used as an offloading technology as well. In recent years, as well as in the near future, some huge changes are on the way impacting the WLAN security and ease of use. The paper provides prospects of the possibilities if WLAN would be classified as a trusted access network. Furthermore, the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Tunnelling Protocol (GTP) is identified as a valuable mobility protocol, which can create advantages for QoS and mobility but also simplifying the architecture and decrease the signalling effort. The paper proposes offloading scenarios for WLAN which could be used to protect access and core networks against overloading.