Testbed for ICN media distribution over LTE radio access networks.

Information-centric networking (ICN) is one of the most promising research topics for the future Internet. ICN aims at circumventing several issues of current Internet protocol (IP) solutions such as efficient multimedia distribution. Given the huge growth rate of video transmission over mobile networks, it is sensible to consider how 4G/5G networks can leverage on ICN. There is a substantial body of work considering ICN for fixed networks and also for the core of mobile networks. Less attention has been dedicated to ICN on the radio access network (RAN) or ICN-RAN, which has currently a user plane based on many connection-oriented protocols. To fully benefit from ICN, mobile networks must enable it on the RAN, not only on the core. This work details an ICN deployment on the RAN of fourth and fifth generation of mobile networks (4G/5G) and also presents a testbed that enables proofs of concept of this ICN-RAN using 4G. Complementing theoretical and simulation-based works, such testbeds are essential for a technology that aims to be adopted in a scenario with a vast number of well-established (IP-based) legacy solutions. A couple of applications for the testbed are demonstrated: low-latency and real-time applications and video distribution. The results indicate, for example, that evolving ICN features can be tested with currently available tools, but the lack of hardware accelerators and optimized code limit the bit rate that can be achieved in real-time processing.