Call Failure Prediction in IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Networks

Abstract

An explosion of traffic volume is the main driver behind launching various 5G services. The 5G network will utilize the IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS) as a core network, same as in 4G networks. Thus, ensuring a high level of survivability and efficient failure management in the IMS is crucial before launching 5G services. We introduce a new methodology based on machine learning to predict the call failures occurring inside the IMS network using the traces for the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) communication. Predicting that the call will fail enables the operator to prevent the failure by redirecting the call to another radio access technique by initiating the Circuit Switching fallback (CS-fallback) through a 380 SIP error response sent to the handset. The advantage of the model is not limited to call failure prediction, but also to know the root causes behind the failure; more specifically, the multi-factorial root is caused by using machine learning, which cannot be obtained using the traditional method (manual tracking of the traces). We built eight different machine learning models using four different classifiers (decision tree, naive Bayes, K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN), and Support Vector Machine (SVM)) and two different feature selection methods (Filter and Wrapper). Finally, we compare the different models and use the one with the highest prediction accuracy to obtain the root causes beyond the call failures. The results demonstrate that using SVM classifier with Wrapper feature selection method conducts the highest prediction accuracy, reaching 97.5%.