Leveraging Wireless Virtualization for Network Capacity Optimization in HetNets

Abstract

Wireless virtualization is regarded as an emerging paradigm for enhancing radio frequency (RF) spectrum utilization through slicing of primary wireless resources in heterogeneous networks (HetNets). In this paper, we study the creation of virtual wireless networks through wireless virtualization for mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) where portion of the primary bandwidth is sliced and leased to the MVNOs. For wireless virtualization, owners of wireless infrastructures in HetNets divide and reconfigure their RF bands to sublease to MVNOs based on their service-level-agreements while keeping enough wireless resources to their own users. Next, we leverage the wireless virtualization to investigate the network sum-capacity and revenue maximization problems for MVNOs where MVNOs offer competitive prices to attract more users for wireless communications. We evaluate the performance of the proposed approach using different metrics such as network sum-capacity, revenue of the MVNOs, competitive price for RF spectrum usage that is based on the spectral capacity of the MVNOs, and the outage probability. Numerical results obtained from simulations show that the sum-capacity of virtual network can be maximized while maximizing their revenue and offering lower/competitive spectrum-usage price for their users.