SDN for Public Safety Networks

Commercial users of modern communications networks have benefited from a huge progress of the related technologies. However, Public Safety Networks (PSNs) and devices did not follow the same trend. Very often, they still rely on voice or low speed data communications, tempting first responders to use their own private devices when they need to exchange real-time video or geolocation information. Under this consideration, national authorities and specialized organizations have recently initiated the integration of more recent technologies, such as cellular Long Term Evolution (LTE), even though they need further developments to cope with the harsh usages that safety personnel may face. This report proposes to move the evolution of these networks towards the recent evolution of networking technologies started with Software Defined networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV). Based on the requirements derived from a standardized earthquake scenario and a study of the main improvements brought by this network softwarization, it analyzes how SDN and NFV can solve part of the issues raised with commercial LTE and enhance PSN communications. The capabilities of these new technologies are applied to a list of characteristics required by mission-critical networks, e.g., rapid deployment, reliability, security or resilience, taking advantage of features such as the separation between control and data planes or the simplified dynamic resources management. The resulting enhancements are then illustrated using example frameworks published in the literature for Cloud Radio Access Networks, resilient backhaul solution , isolated base stations, SDN-based architecture or Service Function Chaining