Today's Next Generation Mobile Network architecture is challenged by several limitations in regard to the performance and flexibility. Recent investigations and proposals on core network architecture improvements through applying the Software Defined Network (SDN) concepts have been published, but no implementation has been presented yet. The main contribution of this paper is the design, implementation and validation of a Carrier Grade Software Defined Telecommunication system consisting of an OpenFlow Controller (OFC), Switch (OFS) and Protocol (OFP) according to latest OpenFlow (OF) standards and optimized for an 3GPP Evolved Packet Core (EPC). This paper first presents related work, positions contributions of this paper against the State of the Art and identifies important requirements for a new telecommunication network architecture. Secondly as a main contribution, the specifications of Software Defined Telecommunication OFC, OFS and OFP are presented as an architectural extension for the Evolved Packet Core (EPC). A section on the implementation of the presented specifications highlights the most relevant software technical design decisions. An extensive evaluation validates and evaluates the prototype within an existing Evolved Packet Core implementation. A summary concludes all finding of the authors and presents planned Future Work finally.

The current trend in operator networks is towards the deployment of high capacity radio technologies such as LTE accommodating a high number of devices and their data traffic. However, the current network architecture was designed for a lower level of communication in which scalability was achieved through uniform operator control. Connectivity for each mobile device was handled in the same manner, no matter of its characteristics, network location or resources required resulting in a high overhead in supporting a large part of the subscribers. This paper introduces a new self-adaptation concept realized as a subscriber oriented management layer enabling the customization of the control procedures and resources reserved to the individual communication requirements for each device. The concept is exemplified for access network selection and core network path adaptation use cases, adapted for the 3GPP Evolved Packet Core architecture and evaluated through a testbed realization based on the Fraunhofer FOKUS OpenEPC toolkit.

With the gradual deployment of LTE in addition to the other 2G and 3G access networks standardized by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) together with the adoption of the 3GPP Evolved Packet Core (EPC) as the all-IP core network architecture, a new level of communication is achieved in the operator wireless environment. The increased network capacity enables a higher number of devices to be connected and to communicate with extended data rates, bringing new opportunities to develop wireless tailored services and to evolve the network functional features like QoS, charging, mobility, security, management and monitoring. This paper describes the Fraunhofer FOKUS OpenEPC testbed extension related to the integration of off-the-shelf cost efficient 3GPP access networks addressing especially the 2G technologies. Through the functionality here presented, the OpenEPC testbed users are able to connect and to exchange data over a 3GPP access, enabling accurate measurements and evaluation of their novel features similar to the real deployed networks, relying on the OpenEPC core network functionality for application delivery support and subscriber, mobility and resources management. The initiative of integrating 3GPP access networks in OpenEPC provides to both the academic and industry researchers the means to rapidly and cost-efficient realize complete small-scale operator networks systems and application support testbeds.