SAE and the Evolved Packet Core: Driving the Mobile Broadband Revolution

This book provides a clear, concise, complete and authoritative introduction to System Architecture Evolution (SAE) standardization work and its main outcome: the Evolved Packet Core (EPC), including potential services and operational scenarios. After providing an insightful overview of SAE's historical development, the book gives detailed explanations of the EPC architecture and key concepts as an introduction. In-depth technical descriptions of EPC follow, including thorough functional accounts of the different components of EPC, protocols, network entities and procedures. Case studies of deployment scenarios show how the functions described within EPC are placed within a live network context, while a description of the services that are predicted to be used shows what EPC as a core network can enable.

This book is an essential resource for professionals and students who need to understand the latest developments in SAE and EPC, the 'engine' that connects broadband access to the internet.

All of the authors have from their positions with Ericsson been actively involved in GPRS, SAE and 3GPP from a business and technical perspective for many years. Several of the authors have also been actively driving the standardization efforts within 3GPP.

• Up-to-date coverage of SAE including the latest standards development
• Easily accessible overview of the architecture and concepts defined by SAE
• Thorough description of the Evolved Packet Core for LTE, fixed and other wireless accesses
• Comprehensive explanation of SAE key concepts, security and Quality-of-Service
• Covers potential service and operator scenarios including interworking with existing 3GPP and 3GPP2 systems
• Detailed walkthrough of network entities, protocols and procedures
• Written by established experts in the SAE standardization process, all of whom have extensive experience and understanding of its goals, history and vision

About the Author

Catherine Mulligan is the Transitional Research Fellow in Innovation Studies at Horizon Digital Economy Research at the University of Nottingham. She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge, and an MPhil in Engineering, also from the University of Cambridge. She received first class honours for her BSc. (Business Information Technology) from the University of New South Wales, Australia. Prior to her current post, Catherine worked for 15 years in the IT and telecommunications industries, including 10 years at Ericsson contributing extensively to the IMS - in particular representing Ericsson within several standardization forums. She holds various patents in core network areas. Catherine is also the co-author of several books, including SAE and the Evolved Packet Core: Driving the Mobile Broadband Revolution (Elsevier, 2009) and the sole author of The Communications Industries in the Era of Convergence (Routledge, 2011), which investigates the economic and technical factors driving the communication industries.