Service differentiation for improved cell capacity in LTE networks

Abstract

The wide flexibility of LTE resource allocation scheme has led to the definition of various schedulers that attempt to maximize the quality of the service offered to the different users, depending on their channel conditions. Unfortunately, providing service guarantees in dynamic channel conditions typically requires a cost in terms of spectral efficiency of the transmission resource allocation. In this work, we investigate this tradeoff and propose a resource allocation scheme that adapts the service level guarantees to the average channel conditions of the users, in order to provide fair resource allocation among users with homogeneous channel conditions, while improving the cell spectral efficiency. A performance analysis is carried out by comparing the proposed scheduler with other well known schedulers. Results show that the proposed method can improve the cell capacity, while guaranteeing long-term throughput fairness among users of the same class. In addition, we analyze the short-term throughput provided by the proposed scheduler and provide a semi-analytical model to assess the gap with respect to the long-term performance

Modelling the region‐based VoLTE cell capacity estimation using resource optimisation

“…Higher capacity enables the network operators to satisfy more mobile users especially in dense urban area and there by reduces the number of eNBs required within the geographical area. However, most of the earlier studies on LTE cell capacity [14–22] is based on Physical layer (PHY layer) estimate, i.e. in terms of throughput estimation that indicates its data carrying capability.…”

“…Since all the techniques may not be applicable in different radio conditions, hence it is required to optimise the cell capacity for each of the regions based on the radio conditions. Region‐based user's classification is studied in [17, 40, 41] for resource allocation within the cell for developing efficient CAC policy. The work reported in [40] proposed a novel resource allocation approach by dividing the coverage area of eNB in different regions based on the principle of modulation efficiency.…”

“…Here the cellular regions are divided based on the corresponding MCS. The work reported in [17] partitioned the users in different classes based on the average Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) for developing flexible scheduling policy to obtain higher spectral efficiency. The work reported in [41] introduces a new dimension of categorisation based on the resource usage of mobile users for developing CAC policy.…”