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The performance of network-controlled mobile data offloading from LTE to WiFi networks

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Abstract

Global mobile data traffic consumption and usage continues to increase rapidly leading to congested networks. Currently, cellular networks are overloaded with mobile data traffic due to the rapid growth of mobile broadband subscriptions and the increasing popularity of diversified applications for smartphones with multiple wireless interfaces and the flat-rate pricing model of cellular networks. One possible practical 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 network-controlled 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-threshold based handover solution and extension to the 3rd Generation Partnership Project 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 WiFi offloading.

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Notes

  1. Throughout this paper, we use ‘3G’ to refer to a cellular network (For example, LTE).

  2. PDN GW is the point of interconnect between the EPC and the external IP networks. These networks are called Packet Data Network (PDN). The PDN GW routes packets to and from the PDNs and it also performs various functions such as IP address or policy control and charging.

  3. Throughout this paper, we use the word ’AP’ to refer to a WiFi AP.

  4. An active user is a terminal that is registered with a cell and is using or seeking to use air link resources to receive and/or transmit data within a short time interval (e.g., within 100 ms).

  5. Cell-edge user : is a user with a bitrate close to a pre-defined percentile of the bitrate distribution.

  6. With the system models considered it is mainly the aggregate traffic per AP that affects the performance. Therefore, a hotspot probability of X % with equal traffic generation per user could also roughly be said to represent a hotspot probability of Y % but with k times the traffic generation per user in the hotspot fulfilling the relationship kY/(1-Y)=X. Similarly, if there are N hotspots per cellular cell rather than 1, this would on average divide the traffic per hotspot with N, which could be approximated with a correspondingly reduced hotspot probability.

  7. A cell site or simply site is a base station or the geographical location of a base station which is equipped with transmission and reception equipment.

  8. Where C \(_{n}\) is the capacity of the network n.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and valuable inputs.

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  1. UNIK - University Graduate Centre, Oslo, Norway

    Desta Haileselassie Hagos

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  1. Desta Haileselassie Hagos
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Correspondence to Desta Haileselassie Hagos.

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Hagos, D.H. The performance of network-controlled mobile data offloading from LTE to WiFi networks. Telecommun Syst 61, 675–694 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11235-015-0061-2

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