Development of Network Simulator for LWA/LAA Implementations

Abstract

The network traffic is facing an inevitable surge as the number of smartphone users increases dramatically. LTE CA (Carrier Aggregation) aggregates carriers to increase speed, but it is gradually reaching its limit. Reaching the limit is occurred by the limitation of the available frequencies and the high-frequency costs that make it difficult to obtain additional licensed-bands. As a result, wireless service providers have begun to pay attention to unlicensed bands. As the number of mobile users increases, Wi-Fi can be accessed everywhere in the city. The two major technologies cooperating LTE and Wi-Fi have now emerged. The implementations of LWA (LTE Wi-Fi Aggregation) and LAA (Licensed Assisted Access) has the great impacts on both the service operators and service users. To elaborate technical advances for both LWA and LAA, we develop a network simulator and its customized UI. Through this, wireless communication providers can conduct a simulation on LWA and LAA to test in advance, and through the implemented UI, the amount of throughput and packet flow between the nodes can be obtained.