Signaling Traffic in Internet-of-Things Mobile Networks

The Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to play an increasingly important role in next-generation mobile networks. Detailed knowledge of this type of traffic and the associated signaling in those networks is of interest to operators and standardization in order to run these networks successfully. The aim of this study is to characterize IoT signaling traffic for mobile communication networks (i) from a network operator's point of view, (ii) at device level, and (iii) for the establishment of data connections. General statistics on signaling and device behavior, such as the observed IoT traffic volume and message composition, are given before device classes with statistically different signaling behavior are identified. Finally, by characterizing the aggregated signaling traffic, we show that the Markov assumption, widespread in standardization and literature, regarding the aggregated arrival process for data connections does not apply in reality.