Cost-optimized location and service management scheme for next-generation mobile networks

We propose a cost-optimized location and service management scheme for next-generation mobile networks (NGWN), where a per-user service proxy is created in order to serve as a gateway between the mobile user and all clientserver applications engaged by the mobile user. The service proxy is always co-located with the mobile user's location database during a location handoff, a service handoff also ensues to co-locate the service proxy with the location database. This allows the proxy to know the location of the mobile user at all times in order to reduce the network communication cost for service delivery. We analyze four integrated location and service management schemes. Our results indicate that the centralized scheme performs the best when the mobile user's service to mobility ratio (SMR) is low and V (session to mobility ratio) is high, while the fully distributed scheme performs the best when both SMR and V are high. Through analytical results, we demonstrate that different users with vastly different mobility and service patterns should adopt different integrated location and service management methods to optimize system performance.