Video-aware time-domain resource partitioning in heterogeneous cellular networks

Heterogenous cellular networks (HCN) consist of macrocells and small cells that are overlaid in the same geographical area. Hence, is critical that the high power macrocell shuts off its transmissions for a fraction of the time to allow the low power small cells to transmit without interference. This is the time-domain resource partitioning (TDRP) mechanism. In this paper we investigate video communication in HCNs when TDRP is employed. More specifically we consider the problem of maximizing the average video quality of all users, by jointly optimizing the rate allocated to each specific video stream and the quality that it is streamed. The resulting mixed integer linear program (MILP) formulation is solved numerically. Simulation results indicate clearly that as the small cells and the users are increased the proposed system can improve significantly the video quality.