Long Term Evolution (LTE) is currently being used for commercial networks and the same technology will also be used for Public Safety (PS)... Show moreLong Term Evolution (LTE) is currently being used for commercial networks and the same technology will also be used for Public Safety (PS) applications. As a way to maximize network usage and also to allow PS users to share the commercial networks especially during emergency or disaster situations, PS users need to co-exist with commercial users in a shared network environment. To ensure proper assignment of resources in a network originated call scenario, priority mechanisms have been proposed in this report. Priority mechanism in terms of assignment of resources for the user plane, for scheduling of resources in the control plane, and for meeting Quality of Service (QoS) requirements have been discussed. To provide priority treatment, the use of a new parameter named Call Priority Number (CPN) generated by the Policy control and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) is proposed. This parameter signifies the priority of a call in terms of the caller priority, the callee priority and the priority of the application. For incoming calls, the functionality of providing priority mechanism for resource assignment using CPN is proposed to be in the Mobility Management Entity (MME). The functionality for scheduling resources in the control plane, for performing paging, for priority mechanism functionality that uses CPN and the implementation of using different paging cycles for the users based on their priority resides in the evolved NodeB (eNodeB). For managing the priority based on QoS, a mapping of the priority of applications served by LTE networks to the Differentiated Services has been proposed. The mapping can be implemented in the Packet data network Gate Way (PGW). The proposals are verified by simulation. The results show that the PS users are assigned the x required resources for the user plane, they get prioritized QoS treatment within the LTE network, and the PS users are given higher priority over the commercial users. As a result of the techniques proposed in this report, the time it takes to set up a call between PS users is reduced, the number of dropped calls for the PS user decrease, and the PS users have a faster access to network resources. M.S. in Electrical Engineering, December 2012 Show less
