Access point virtualization for multiple services in heterogeneous WLANs

Abstract

In recent years, as higher performance terminal equipments are spread, the amount of mobile data traffic is growing rapidly by using popularization of streaming services in wireless networks. To overcome this situation, it is considered that Access Points (APs) are deployed densely for capacity improvement. In such an environment, virtualization is a possible technique to use multiple APs efficiently. In this paper, we assume the environment where macro cells and small cells are co-existing, and BE (Best Effort) users and GBR (Guaranteed Bit Rate) users arrive. Then, we propose a virtual AP configuration method. Specifically, BE and GBR virtual APs are configured with multiple physical APs respectively and the configuration of both virtual APs are changed dynamically at the constant interval. The proposed method achieves reducing the call blocking rate of GBR users and improving satisfaction of BE users.