Wi-Fi offloading between LTE and WLAN with combined UE and BS information

Abstract

With the increasing popularity of mobile devices, cellular networks are suffering the consequences of a mobile data traffic explosion. Operators and standard development organizations have adopted Heterogeneous Network (HetNet) solutions which offload traffic from cellular networks to other Radio Access Technologies to reduce the overloaded situation. To minimize service blocking ratios, HetNets need to be designed with an efficient approach to allocate heterogeneous channel resources. This work proposes a Combined UE and BS Information scheme (CUBI), which follows the standard architecture proposed by 3rd generation partnership project. We compare the impacts of using the User Equipment (UE) information only, and Base Stations (BS) information only to achieve network selection. We then propose a 2-round solution that benefits from both UE and BS information. The UE-information scheme is based on channel qualities of all available networks, and using it selects the network which provides the highest data rate. On the other hand, the BS-information scheme (BSI) is based on traffic loads of all UEs to allocate bandwidth, and using BSI will prevent BSs from overload situations. The simulation results demonstrate that CUBI can decrease service blocking ratios by 26 and 8.9 %, compared to schemes separately using US and BS information, respectively.