LTE Signaling Traffic: What’s Really Going On?

The Internet is teeming with discussions and assertions that the amount of Diameter signaling traffic generated by the 4G LTE wireless core network is significantly higher than analogous SS7 signaling traffic. But is this additional LTE signaling traffic attributable to additional network elements involving the Diameter protocol or the impacts of changing user behavior afforded by the features of LTE? Using Diametriq’s Diameter Traffic Calculator™, which is based on the standard signaling message flows as promulgated by 3GPP, certain scenarios reveal network bottlenecks, the influences of user behavior on signaling traffic and places in the network where fine-tuning can mitigate excessive traffic.