A novel coexistence scheme for IEEE 802.11 for user fairness and efficient spectrum utilization in the presence of LTE-U

Abstract

A promising solution satisfying the industry’s demand to have minimum modification in LTE for its operation in unlicensed spectrum is duty cycled LTE-U scheme, which adopts discontinuous transmission to ensure fair coexistence with 802.11 (Wi-Fi) WLANs. Even though the scheme guarantees to maintain Wi-Fi network performance, the fairness among Wi-Fi users still remains arcane. In this work, we present a practical scenario where LTE-U, despite being discontinuous (by following an ON/OFF cycle), results in not only unfair throughput distribution among Wi-Fi users but also causes degradation in Wi-Fi AP’s downlink performance. This is due to the domination of few Wi-Fi users who harness channel in both ON and OFF durations of LTE-U, namely non-victim users over those who get access only in OFF duration, called victim users. In this paper, we studied the performance of victim and non-victim Wi-Fi users, and Wi-Fi AP while varying LTE-U ON fraction (i.e., duty cycle). A propitious scheme is proposed for WLANs, with regard to ease of implementation, employing Point/Hybrid Coordination Function (PCF/HCF) mode of 802.11, promising fairness among Wi-Fi users with improvement in the channel utilization of Wi-Fi network. The key idea is that the victim users, who can only be served during the LTE-U OFF period should be served in Contention Free Period (CFP)—so as to improve their throughputs and make them equally competitive with non-victim users. Also, we present an analytical model to demonstrate guaranteed improvement and to validate our simulation results.