5G-OTTVPN

BASIC INFORMATION

Short name: 5G-OTTVPN
Long name: Impact of Encryption VPN on LTE/5G Radio & UE Resources

Company: EIGHT BELLS LTD
Country: Cyprus

Call Stage 1: F4Fp-SME-COD210316 (see call details)
Proposal number: F4Fp-SME-COD210316-01

SUMMARY REMARKS & TESTBEDS

With each generation of mobile technology, we see improvements in the offered security architecture and features. However, even in the latest 5G specification there is an inherent weakness: security is standardized in a hop-by-hop fashion, where user data is decrypted and encrypted in different functions within the network. An over-the-top VPN is the most common means for providing end-to-end user data encryption overcoming the risks of the hop-by-hop encryption specified in mobile networks. The purpose of this experiment is obtaining up-to-date data on the impact of VPN encryption both on the network and user equipment, by comparing different VPN protocols. Specifically, we aim to study the effect on: i) throughput (overhead due to encryption), ii) UE CPU utilization, iii) UE power consumption and iv) radio state transitions (IDLE to CONNECTED).

MATERIALS