Dependent Misconfigurations in 5G/4.5G Radio Resource Control

Abstract

In this paper, we study an important, yet unexplored problem of configuration dependencies in 5G/4.5G radio resource control (RRC). Different from the previous studies in 3G/4G networks, 5G/4.5G allows more than one cells to serve a mobile device, resulting in more configuration dynamics and complexity that vary with all the serving cells. We analyze inter-dependency among configurations, categorize dependent misconfigurations, uncover their root causes, and quantify negative performance impacts. Specifically, we formulate configuration updates into a delta state machine (DSM) and unveil two types of dependent misconfigurations among states (inter-state) and within a state (intra-state); They stem from structural dependency and cross-parameter dependency. We further show that such misconfigurations incur service disruption and performance degradation. Our findings have been largely validated with three US operators and one Chinese operator; Our study has uncovered 644 instances of problematic dependencies.