With both small-cell LTE and Wi-Fi networks available as alternatives for deployment in unlicensed bands (notably 5 GHz), the investigation into their coexistence is a topic of active interest, primarily driven by industry groups. 3GPP has recently standardized LTE Licensed Assisted Access (LTE-LAA) that seeks to make LTE more co-existence friendly with Wi-Fi by incorporating similar sensing and back-off features. Nonetheless, the results presented by industry groups offer little consensus on important issues like respective network parameter settings that promote "fair access" as required by 3GPP. Answers to such key system deployment aspects, in turn, require credible analytical models, on which there has been little progress to date. Accordingly, in one of the first work of its kind, we develop a new framework for estimating the throughput of Wi-Fi and LTE-LAA in coexistence scenarios via suitable modifications to the celebrated Bianchi [1] model. The impact of various network parameters such as energy detection (ED) threshold on Wi-Fi and LTE-LAA coexistence is explored as a byproduct and corroborated via a National Instrument (NI) experimental testbed that validates the results for LTE-LAA access priority class 1 and 3.Index Terms-Wi-Fi, LTE-LAA, 5GHz Unlicensed band Coexistence.
With both small-cell LTE and 802.11 networks now available as alternatives for deployment in unlicensed bands at 5 GHz, investigation into their coexistence is a topic of great interest. 3GPP Rel. 14 has standardized LTE licensed assisted access (LAA) that seeks to make LTE more coexistence friendly with Wi-Fi by incorporating listen before talk (LBT). However, the fairness of Wi-Fi and LTE-LAA sharing is a topic that has not been adequately explored. In this work, we first investigate the 3GPP definition of fair coexistence in [1] via new analytical models. By tuning the LTE-LAA parameters, we exemplify scenarios when the 3GPP notion of fairness is achieved and conversely, when not achieved. The formal notions of access and proportional fairness is then considered for these scenarios to compare and contrast with the 3GPP definition.
Small-cell LTE and Wi-Fi networks are both currently deployed in the unlicensed 5 GHz bands globally, leading to the need for new coexistence regulations between two very different access technologies. 3GPP standardized LTE Licensed Assisted Access (LTE-LAA) addresses the above coexistence challenge with Wi-Fi through incorporation of similar sensing and back-off features. The success of LAA's fair and efficient coexistence with Wi-Fi can be considered a benchmark for collaborative cellular operation in unlicensed bands.
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