QCI Adaptive Load Balancing in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks of Indoor Environments

Compatibility and wide availability of WLAN make its integration with 3GPP-based networks (LTE, 5G), the most cost efficient solution to meet high service demands and ubiquitous radio coverage. In a heterogeneous network, seamless mobility, provisioning of quality of service (QoS) and proper distribution of load among interworking networks are the most challenging issues and need to be resolved accurately. In the literature, many theoretical algorithms (prediction based algorithms) and mathematical solutions (utility or cost function) have been proposed for load sharing in the heterogeneous networks. However, these algorithms are either based on assumptions like availability of certain parameters of neighbouring networks or possibility of exchanging the network conditions in real time. Such assumptions restrict the implementation of these solutions on real network infrastructures due to non-availability of protocols or interfaces to exchange the network parameters. Moreover, sustainability of the specified QoS for each traffic type is very important while assisting a 3GPP network with a non-3GPP network. This paper presents a QoS class identifier (QCI) aware load sharing technique based on the available information at the deciding entity of the anchor network. A network architecture is designed to efficiently provide radio coverage inside a building with single LTE small cell and an optimum number of WLAN APs (Access Points). The idea is to not only increase the overall network capacity but improve the user experience as well. Simulation results show that the proposed load sharing technique for the LTE-WLAN integrated network not only extends the mobile network services to the confined coverage of indoor environment but also maintains the QoS for high priority traffic.