I. Introduction
As the borderline between cellular networks and the Internet is becoming more blurred, the seamless integration and convergence of these two technologies is imminent. With the advent of smart phones and their market proliferation, phones are no longer limited to voice communication but are used as a platform to perform virtually any computing task their users require. Supporting these advanced features can become a daunting task for telecom operators as they are required to provide a new set of supplementary services that will surely create an additional burden on their resources and infrastructure. The additional burden is mainly due to the drastic increase of data and signaling traffic to accommodate the services offered by various applications. Signaling traffic includes all the control and setup messages generated by the mobile phone and the cellular network prior to the initiation of a data session. The explosion of traffic has become a major concern for telecom operators and hence, coming up with solutions to resolve possible stresses and failures, is of paramount importance.