Resource Allocation in CAT-M and LTE-A Coexistence: A Joint Contention Bandwidth Optimization Scheme

There are high expectations for IoT devices and networks concerning reliability, performance, quality, and long-term availability. Indeed, wireless connectivity is the most critical success factor for the IoT era. Recently, the cellular technologies focused on introducing new releases, like LTE Cat-M1, to provide global coverage and mobility for the IoT applications. However, the cellular spectrum is already congested, and adding new services will defiant the existing ones. Herein, the network key performance indicator (KPI) should be considered to enhance the resource management for LTE and LTE CAT M1 users. Tackling the coexistence between the aforementioned in the 1.4 Mhz band, three coexistence optimization problems are formulated. The first and the second coexistence optimization problems are formulated assuming higher IoT-traffic priority, and higher LTE-traffic priority, respectively. On the other hand, the third problem is formulated assuming that both the IoT-traffic and the LTE-traffic have the same priority. Afterward, a scheduling optimization solution algorithm is proposed using the interior point method. Finally, the performance of the proposed scheduling algorithm is evaluated via numerical analysis.