Generic Real-Time Traffic Distribution Framework: Black Rider

In order to manage the exponential growth of traffic in mobile network environments and the increasing requirements on bandwidth, Quality of Service (QoS) and mobility, the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) infrastructure has to provide for an appropriate traffic distribution among the available networks. This paper proposes a new real-time traffic distribution framework, called Black Rider, which is context- and policy-based and supports heterogeneous wireless networks. It provides an architectural overview and a functional description of the framework and gives details of the three main functions - the context gathering, the coordination of external modules, and the distribution of the final commands or information to the end user device - to enable a real-time traffic management. Furthermore, a formal evaluation of the Black Rider against defined requirements for vertical handover and traffic offload is provided.