Providing differentiated services in EGPRS through radio resource management

Abstract

Traditionally, packet scheduling has been considered to be the primary technique for providing quality of service in communication networks. In a previous paper (see IEEE Globecom '00 Proc., vol.3, p.1515-21, Nov. 2000) we explored different packet scheduling techniques for providing differentiated services (premium vs. basic service offerings) in the 3G EGPRS (enhanced general packet radio services) system. A premium service is defined here as one with a higher priority, and therefore resulting in a better user experience, than a basic service. This paper continues the investigation. In particular, we assess algorithms that allocate multiple time slots for premium users. The results show that multi-time slot assignment for premium users is very effective in supporting differentiated service offerings. It provides a better user experience to premium users with little performance degradation to the basic users.