Analyzing zone-based registration using a three zone system: A semi-Markov process approach

The location of user equipment (UE) should always be maintained in order to connect any incoming calls within a mobile network. While several methods of location registration have been proposed, most mobile networks have adopted zone-based registration due to its superior performance. Even though recommendations from research on these zone-based systems state that multiple zones can be stored in a zone-based registration system, actual current mobile networks only employ a zone-based registration system that stores a single zone. Therefore, some studies have been conducted on zone-based registration using multiple zones. However, most of these studies consider only two zones. In this study, through the development of a semi-Markov process approach, we present a simple but accurate mathematical model for zone-based registration using three zones. In addition, our research results in zone-based registration systems where one, two and three zones are used to suggest the optimal management scheme for zone-based registration. Given that most mobile networks have already adopted some kind of zone-based registration, these results are able to directly enhance the performance of the actual mobile network in the near future with the minimum of effort required for implementation.