TCP hole punching approach to address devices in mobile networks

Abstract

The emergence of mobile terminals with enhanced features like high processing power, more memory, inbuilt sensors, low power consumption, etc. have lead to their extensive usage in different domains like mobile social networking, mobile cloud and Internet of Things (IoT). However, to successfully utilize these devices as information providing/processing entities, we need proper means of identification and addressing, so that the devices and their offered data/services are accessible also from outside the mobile network. Addressing devices in mobile networks has been studied extensively over the years and there are several solutions one can consider. However, the most popular and widely used addressing mechanism for internet, IP address, is also being extensively used in mobile data networks (3G/4G). Typically, the IP address assigned to mobile devices ends up with barriers like their temporarily availability, known only within the mobile operator's network, Network Address Translation (NAT) etc., which makes it difficult to use the addresses in IoT scenarios. To address these problems we propose to use UDP sessions with a Rendezvous server to send and receive peer information and TCP sessions established in a hole punching process over NAT, so that information can be exchanged over these devices. The approach is explained in detail along with its prototype implementation and conceptual limitations.