Handover Configurations in Operational 5G Networks: Diversity, Evolution, and Impact on Performance

Mobility management in cellular networks, especially the handover (HO) process, plays a key role in providing seamless and ubiquitous Internet access. The wide-scale deployment of 5G and the resulting co-existence of 4G/5G in the past six years have significantly changed the landscape of all mobile network operators and made the HO process much more complex than before. While several recent works have studied the impact of HOs on user experience, why and how HOs occur and how HO configurations affect performance in 5G operational networks remains largely unknown. Through four cross-country driving trips across the US spread out over a 27-month period, we conduct an in-depth measurement study of HO configurations across all three major US operators. Our study reveals (a) new types of HOs and new HO events used by operators to handle these new types of HOs, (b) overly aggressive HO configurations that result in unnecessarily high signaling overhead, (c) large diversity in HO configuration parameter values, which also differ across operators, but significantly lower diversity in 5G compared to LTE, and (d) sub-optimal HO configurations/decisions leading to poor pre- or post-HO performance. Our findings have many implications for mobile operators, as they keep fine-tuning their 5G HO configurations.