Study on performance-centric offload strategies for LTE networks

Abstract

Currently, cellular networks are overloaded with mobile data traffic due to the rapid growth of mobile broadband subscriptions and the increasing popularity of applications for smartphones. One possible solution to alleviate this problem is the offloading of mobile data traffic from the primary access technology to the WiFi infrastructure to gain extra capacity and improve the overall network performance. As the strategy what and when to offload data is non-trivial, it is of vital importance to develop novel algorithms to guide this process. This paper addresses solutions for WiFi offloading in Long Term Evolution (LTE) cellular networks when performance needs exceed the capability of the LTE access. It then compares the performance of each access technology using different network performance metrics. In detail, an optimized Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)-threshold based handover solution and extension to the 3 rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standard for Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (ANDSF) framework for WiFi offloading is proposed. Our simulation results have shown that ANDSF discovery can be used to control the amount of offloading.

Performance Evaluation for Wi-Fi Offloading Schemes in LTE Networks

“…Different algorithms have been tackled this in research; the first one is Wi-Fi if coverage, which considers the SNR value to trigger the offloading decision to Wi-Fi [1]. This algorithm can end with overloaded Wi-Fi APs with a poor user throughput at high traffic loads.…”

“…Another offloading algorithm using WLAN is mentioned in [1], which is Fixed SNR Threshold. In this algorithm the network offloading is based on choosing the best SNRmin for WLAN APs, which is close to Wi-Fi if coverage concept only at low traffic loads.…”

“…According to the uptake of mobile data services driven by tablets, laptops and smart phones as in [1], the data traffic growth will be tenfold until 2016. Although LTE macro-cells can provide high speed data, they can't fulfill the increased subscribers' demands in high density places.…”

“…In Het-Nets using another network technology to deliver data traffic originally supposed to be delivered by LTE BS is known as data offloading [1]. The offloading can be more beneficial when it can balance the load between LTE macro and the Radio Access Technology (RAT) used.…”

Vehicular WiFi offloading: Challenges and solutions

“…However, such interworking architectures rely on the evolution of mobile access networks with redesigned protocols. Based on off-the-shelf radio access technologies, there have been several proposed WiFi offloading frameworks in the literature [11,7,14,15,16].…”