Optimizing 5G Performance by Reallocating Unused Resources

Abstract

Consistent rate provisioning is one of the most prominent features envisioned in next generation of cellular networks (5G). However, it has been shown that providing a consistent data rate to users leads to severe underutilization of the available resources, making the cellular operator function very inefficiently. A possible way to increase the efficiency is by reallocating the unused resources to the same users. In this paper, we quantify the benefits offered by different reallocation policies both for mobile operator and the users. First, we focus on increasing the efficiency (total throughput) of the cellular network operator and then on providing fairness to mobile users. In both cases, we determine the optimal policy. The theoretical analysis is followed by extensive realistic simulations, where we compare the performance of different reallocation policies with that of a benchmark model (fair share of the resources with no consistency), and show that the right reallocation policy improves the performance significantly.