Capacity Optimization in Networks with Heterogeneous Radio Access Technologies

As it becomes common for wireless service providers (WSP) to employ multiple heterogeneous radio access technologies (RAT), the management of the combined resources across multiple RATs arises as an important issue. The WSP´s objective is to assign different users to the different RATs so as to maximize network capacity (or total utility) while ensuring that individual users´ quality of service (QoS) requirements are met. In this paper, we consider this resource allocation problem for two scenarios: voice communication and video communication. For voice communication, we propose a stable and optimal assignment scheme based on the deferred acceptance algorithm for both static and online cases. For video communication, identifying the NP-hardness of the problem, we propose and compare a set of heuristic algorithms including a low-complexity, high-performance scheme.