Mobile Data Offloading With Policy and Charging Control in 3GPP Core Network

The Third-Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has recently standardized the policy and charging control (PCC) system to provide dynamic policy enforcement for network resource allocation combined with real-time charging. The upward trend in smartphone use and the subsequent explosion of data traffic on third-generation (3G) networks have pressed carriers to offload the data traffic from the cellular domain. One key challenge is to elaborate on PCC functionality and mobility management for offloading sessions. This paper proposes an enhanced Wi-Fi offloading model to bring mobile Internet Protocol (IP) integration to a core network with PCC. Specifically, we develop a comprehensive analytical model to quantify the performance of data offloading concerning the amount of 3G resources saved by offloading and the deadline assurance for measuring the quality of user experience with PCC support. Numerical results demonstrate that deadline assurance can be satisfied while saving a significant amount of 3G resources in many situations.