Enabling multi-homed femtocells using SCTP

This paper proposes modifications to the existing femtocell protocol stack to enable femtocells to be multi-homed and provide seamless flow mobility between available backhaul networks while improving bandwidth utilisation under high load conditions. The Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) is proposed as a replacement to the existing tunnelling protocols (GTP-U or RTP over UDP) for communication between femtocells and femtocell gateways. The paper describes how existing SCTP features can be used to provide the same functionality as both RTP and GTP-U over UDP. An analysis of the impact of the proposed modifications on overhead, bandwidth and delay is also performed.