Open Access

REVIEW

Modeling and Comprehensive Review of Signaling Storms in 3GPP-Based Mobile Broadband Networks: Causes, Solutions, and Countermeasures

by Muhammad Qasim Khan¹, Fazal Malik¹, Fahad Alturise^2,*, Noor Rahman³

1 Department of Computer Science, Iqra National University, Peshawar, 25000, Pakistan
2 Department of Cybersecurity, College of Computer, Qassim University, Buraydah, 52555, Saudi Arabia
3 Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Al-Fayha College, Al Jubayl, 31961, Saudi Arabia

* Corresponding Author: Fahad Alturise. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Computer Modeling for Future Communications and Networks)

Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences 2025, 142(1), 123-153. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmes.2024.057272

Received 13 August 2024; Accepted 25 November 2024; Issue published 17 December 2024

Abstract

Control signaling is mandatory for the operation and management of all types of communication networks, including the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) mobile broadband networks. However, they consume important and scarce network resources such as bandwidth and processing power. There have been several reports of these control signaling turning into signaling storms halting network operations and causing the respective Telecom companies big financial losses. This paper draws its motivation from such real network disaster incidents attributed to signaling storms. In this paper, we present a thorough survey of the causes, of the signaling storm problems in 3GPP-based mobile broadband networks and discuss in detail their possible solutions and countermeasures. We provide relevant analytical models to help quantify the effect of the potential causes and benefits of their corresponding solutions. Another important contribution of this paper is the comparison of the possible causes and solutions/countermeasures, concerning their effect on several important network aspects such as architecture, additional signaling, fidelity, etc., in the form of a table. This paper presents an update and an extension of our earlier conference publication. To our knowledge, no similar survey study exists on the subject.

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Keywords

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