On cellular network planning and operation with M2M signalling and security considerations

The global wide area coverage of cellular networks offers a great advantage to provide connectivity to a wide range of emerging machine-to-machine (M2M) services. The anticipated massive growth of M2M devices is expected to challenge the planning and operation of cellular networks due to new models of traffic behaviour and high signalling loads over the radio access network. Accordingly, it is important to capture the signalling generated by M2M traffic and its effect on cellular network planning and operation. In this paper, we adopt an experimental approach to measure, quantify, and analyze the signalling overhead of two classes of M2M services that resemble smart metering and vehicular M2M connections. Different perspectives are provided in the analysis, identifying the relation between traffic payload data size, transmission direction and incurred signalling overhead for static and mobile scenarios. A security perspective is also presented looking at ways of utilizing the heavy signalling loads generated by M2M devices to implement denial of service (DoS) attacks over the radio access network. The insights drawn from the experimental study are reinforced by results obtained through elaborate network simulations for further analysis and validation.