Delayed offloading zone associations using cloud cooperated heterogeneous networks

Abstract

Delayed offloading of mobile user delay tolerant traffic, through other networks such as WiFi networks or millimeter wave (mm-w) gates, is a promising solution for dealing with the ever-growing problem of wireless cellular network capacity. In this paper, we investigate the problem of how we can optimally associate a user with delayed traffic to a nearby offloading zone, i.e., to which nearby offloading zone a user with delayed traffic should be associated. Towards that, we propose an adaptive scheme for offloading zone association, including a weighted proportional fairness (WPF) online algorithm for optimal zone selection. The proposed scheme is a network-based, which maximizes the total system offloading and the users offloading experiences (OFEs). To efficiently implement the proposed scheme, we also suggest a cloud cooperated heterogeneous network (CC-HetNet) to hold the delayed offloading process in a cloud cooperated manner. In this CC-HetNet, the offloading zones and the Macro Base station (BS) are linked to the Centralized Radio Access Network (C-RAN) using high speed backhaul links. The proposed scheme of offloading zone association will be implemented in the C-RAN as an enhanced Access Network Discovery and Selection Function for delayed offloading networks.