A Novel Coordinated Connection Access Control and Resource Allocation Framework for 4G Wireless Networks

In the academic literature on cellular network design, resource allocation algorithms often attempt to maximize total utility or throughput over a short time period, and connection access control often admits arrivals if and only if there are sufficient resources. In this paper, we investigate how connection access control and resource allocation can be coordinated to jointly achieve maximum total utility. We propose a decomposition in which resource allocation maximizes long-term average utility for each system state, and connection access control maximizes long-term average utility over all system states. We discuss the resulting interface and give examples of algorithms that satisfy this decomposition and interface. Simulation results illustrate that the optimal connection access control policy may block applications with relatively low average utility per unit rate even when capacity is available, and that coordinated connection access control and resource allocation can outperform uncoordinated approaches.