Abstract
To alleviate the spectrum scarcity problem in fifth-generation (5G) networks, traditional mobile data offloading schemes from long term evolution (LTE) to wireless local area networks (WLANs) have been revised by the third-generation partnership project (3GPP) in release 13, which is known as LTE-WLAN aggregation (LWA). With LWA, user equipment units (UEs) supporting both LTE and WLAN can utilize both LTE and WLAN links simultaneously. Thus, UEs under the coverage of an LWA network will be surrounded by multiple standards, such as LTE, WLAN, and LWA, along with cells of different sizes and coverage. Providing the LWA service to all UEs unconditionally may lead to serious intra-cell unfairness, degradation of system-level quality of service (QoS), and a reduction in system resource utilization. Hence, to resolve this issue, two important challenges need to be addressed: Which LTE UEs should be transferred, and how many LTE UEs need to be transferred. In this paper, we propose a user-offloading algorithm for evolved node B (eNB) hardware that smartly allocates the deprived LTE UEs and assigns the LWA service to an optimal number of UEs without degrading the QoS for existing WLAN UEs. With this proposed scheme, all LWA-preferred UEs with poor LTE performance and a good WLAN condition have the opportunity to access LWA service to improve performance. We show that the proposed scheme maximizes the throughput performance of the whole network.
Highlights
The unprecedented escalation in demand for more capacity in cellular networks [1] has imposed significant challenges due to the limited licensed spectrum [2]
Packets belonging to a switched LTE-WLAN aggregation (LWA) bearer are always scheduled over a wireless local area networks (WLANs) by evolved node B, whereas packets belonging to a split LWA bearer can be scheduled over either a WLAN or long term evolution (LTE)
Inspired by the above challenges with LWA, we present a framework of mode selection for LWA-preferred UEs, taking into account the quality of service (QoS) of both WLAN and LTE UEs
Summary
The unprecedented escalation in demand for more capacity in cellular networks [1] has imposed significant challenges due to the limited licensed spectrum [2]. Any effort to achieve capacity growth through network densification faces the challenge of severe inter-cell interference The solution to this issue is to make the best use of all spectrum types through matured technology. Packets belonging to a switched LWA bearer are always scheduled over a WLAN by evolved node B (eNB), whereas packets belonging to a split LWA bearer can be scheduled over either a WLAN or LTE. In both cases, the packets received through both interfaces are reordered at the link layer and delivered to the higher layer in order.
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