A unified traffic steering framework for LTE radio access network coordination

This article presents an overview of recent 3GPP developments in the area of traffic steering that are shaping the road toward the approaching 5G systems. Due to the increasing availability of RAN features addressing mobile data delivery over a variety of spectrum access techniques, a new traffic steering design is required for the evolving LTE-Advanced Pro standard. LTE evolution toward 5G brings an opportunity to introduce a native and unified approach to the coordination of radio access mechanisms in multi-radio access technology networks for efficient data delivery in mobile networks. This leads to a design of a unified traffic steering framework, aiming at the orchestration of traffic steering related features for optimal radio resource utilization. Load-based radio access network coordination is presented and accompanied by illustrative examples to visualize how the multitude of LTE-Advanced Pro features can be handled in a holistic manner. Based on the proposed solution, potential evolution directions of mobile networks are discussed as an initial step toward the standardization of 5G.