Realizing ICN in 3GPP's 5G NextGen Core Architecture

TL;DR

This paper explores integrating Information Centric Networking (ICN) into 3GPP's 5G NextGen Core architecture to enhance network slicing, support heterogeneous devices, and enable advanced services like mobile edge computing and seamless mobility.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of extending 5G Core architecture to support ICN, including control and user plane modifications and practical use cases.

Findings

ICN can be integrated into 5G Core with specific control plane extensions.

Enabling ICN supports advanced services like mobile edge computing.

ICN integration improves seamless mobility for connected devices.

Abstract

The proposed 3GPP's 5G Next-generation (NextGen) Core architecture (5GC) enables the ability to introduce new user and control plane functions within the context of network slicing to allow greater flexibility in handling of heterogeneous devices and applications. In this paper, we discuss the integration of such architecture with future networking technologies by focusing on the information centric networking (ICN) technology. For that purpose, we first provide a short description of the proposed 5GC, which is followed by a discussion on the extensions to 5GC's control and user planes to support Protocol Data Unit (PDU) sessions from ICN. To illustrate the value of enabling ICN within 5GC, we focus on two important network services that can be enabled by ICN data networks. The first case targets mobile edge computing for a connected car use case, whereas the second case targets seamless mobility support for ICN sessions. We present these discussions in consideration with the procedures proposed by 3GPP's 23.501 and 23.502 technical specifications.