Iub Traffic Gateway for Encrypted WCDMA Bandwidth Optimization
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Solution Overview
Problem
The Iub interface in WCDMA mobile networks acts as a bottleneck for data traffic due to its encrypted data payload and complex protocol, making it opaque to existing stream de-duplication and optimization techniques, which limits bandwidth efficiency and increases latency.
Innovation Solution
A gateway system with digital data processors and communication links is introduced to interface with core network elements and remote base stations, capable of detecting data and signaling channels, decrypting encrypted data, converting it for optimization, and re-encrypting optimized data, thereby reducing bandwidth requirements and improving throughput.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of energy
If stream de-duplication is applied to reduce bandwidth consumption, then bandwidth efficiency improves, but it cannot be applied to the Iub interface because the data payload is encrypted and the protocol is nontrivial
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a gateway as an intermediary device positioned between the Iub interface and the stream de-duplication optimizer. The gateway performs decryption of the encrypted data payload and protocol conversion, transforming the opaque encrypted stream into clear IP traffic that the optimizer can process. This intermediary resolves the contradiction by enabling de-duplication on encrypted interfaces without requiring changes to the original encryption or protocol.
Solution Approach 2:
The system segments the Iub interface processing into distinct functional components: the gateway handles decryption and protocol conversion separately from the stream de-duplication optimization. This segmentation allows each component to specialize in its function - the gateway manages the complexity of encrypted traffic handling while the optimizer focuses purely on bandwidth reduction through de-duplication.
2Reliability
If the Iub interface uses encrypted data payload to ensure security, then security is improved, but the interface becomes opaque to WAN stream de-duplication optimizers
Solution Approach 1:
The gateway acts as a trusted intermediary that temporarily decrypts the data payload to enable optimization processing. The decryption is performed securely within the gateway, which has appropriate security credentials. The optimized clear IP traffic is then fed to the de-duplication optimizer, which can now detect and measure traffic patterns effectively. This maintains security while removing opacity.
3Loss of energy
If data traffic is optimized by de-duplication, then bandwidth consumption reduces, but latency may increase due to the additional processing steps required
Solution Approach 1:
The gateway performs decryption and protocol conversion in advance, before the traffic reaches the stream de-duplication optimizer. This preliminary action prepares the traffic in an optimized format that enables efficient de-duplication processing. By pre-processing the encryption/decryption overhead, the subsequent de-duplication can operate more efficiently with reduced additional latency.
Data Source
AI summary
A gateway turns encrypted PS data traffic on the Iub interface into clear IP packets so that WAN stream de-duplication and other optimization can be performed to eliminate the transfer of repetitive data across the Iub interface, thereby increasing the throughput between the NodeB and the RNC of the WCDMA network. The gateway pulls PS data traffic out from Iub without disturbing the signaling and CS traffic. The bifurcated PS data traffic is redirected to the GTP I/O port of the gateway where the stream de-duplication is applied. Deployment of the gateway is transparent to the WCDMA network. No network reconfiguration is required to deploy the gateway on the Iub interface.