Integrated mobility and resource management for cross-network resource sharing in heterogeneous wireless networks using traffic offload policies

Abstract

Citation: Sivchenko, D., Rakocevic, V. & Habermann, J. (2015). Integrated mobility and resource management for cross-network resource sharing in heterogeneous wireless networks using traffic offload policies. Wireless Networks, 21(3), pp. 981-999. doi: 10.1007/s11276-014-0826-7 This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Abstract: The problem of efficient use of resources in wireless access networks becomes critical today with users expecting continuous high-speed network access. While access network capacity continues to increase, simultaneous operation of multiple wireless access networks presents an opportunity to increase the data rates available to end-users even further using intelligent cross-network resource sharing. This paper introduces a new Integrated Mobility and Resource Management (IMRM) framework for automatic execution of policies for cross-network resource sharing using traffic offload and pre-emptive resource reservation algorithms. The presented framework enables both mobile-initiated and network-initiated resource sharing policies to be executed. This paper presents the framework in detail and analyses its performance using extensive ns-2 simulations of the operation of a set of static policies based on measured signal strength, and dynamic pre-emptive network-initiated policies in a WiFi/WiMAX scenario. The detailed evaluation of the static policies clearly shows that the quality of voice applications shows large deviation, mostly due to very different levels of delay in access networks. Based on these conclusions, this paper presents a design of two new dynamic policies and shows that such policies, when efficiently implemented using the new IMRM framework can greatly improve the capacity of the network to serve voice traffic with a minimal impact on the data traffic and with a very low signalling overhead. Permanent

Efficient access of mobile flows to heterogeneous networks under flash crowds

“…The terminals ranked list of NAPs, eventually from different access technologies, in combination with convenient policies downloaded from the brokerage service deployed at the access network, enhance at the terminals, very important control features like flow admission and network selection, which are, in this way, executed at terminals but assisted by the network (Table 1). Our proposal is related with available contributions in [7,8]. Nevertheless, our proposal has a broader utilization than [7] because the latter is specialized to offload voice traffic.…”

“…Our proposal is related with available contributions in [7,8]. Nevertheless, our proposal has a broader utilization than [7] because the latter is specialized to offload voice traffic. In opposition to [8], where a centralized solution is proposed to optimize the network access in scenarios with no mobility support, the current work offers a distributed flow admission mechanism to support a specific QoS flow level in each multimode mobile terminal.…”

“…In opposition to [8], where a centralized solution is proposed to optimize the network access in scenarios with no mobility support, the current work offers a distributed flow admission mechanism to support a specific QoS flow level in each multimode mobile terminal. Our solution also supports load balancing among wireless access technologies [9] and traffic offloading [7]. In this way, the flow handovers are not only due to terminal mobility but also to load variations at NAPs and/or backhaul, which are logically controlled by policies in a centralized way, similarly to the SDN paradigm (Table 1).…”