Multi-tier token based scheduling considering QoS and revenue in OFDMA system

Due to the propagation of smart handhold terminals, e.g. iPhone and iPad, the data traffic is growing rapidly in cellular networks. To fulfill the increased data traffic and attract more customers, the operators need to construct the network infrastructure and update their service planning, e.g. via introduction of flat-rate (FR) service plan. While along with the increase of data users, especially FR users, the operators find that the revenue and QoS (Quality of Service) will not improve accordingly. One important reason is that the over-transmitted FR services will distinctly affect the QoS of non-flat-rate (NFR) ones, and meanwhile lead very limited revenue benefit to operators. The conventional QoS scheduling researches are mainly targeting to UE (User Equipment) side issues, e.g. GBR (Guaranteed Bit Rate), instead of the revenue from operator side. To consider both UE´s QoS and operational revenue, the paper firstly introduces the Token based Proportional Fairness (TPF) scheduling as the premise, and then presents the Multi-tier Token Model (MTM) for FR and NFR differentiation. After that, the two-stage PF factor updating method for revenue optimization is proposed. The system evaluations show that the proposed solution of revenue oriented scheduling can properly distribute the radio resource for higher income tendentiousness, and in the meantime fulfill the GBR requests for both FR and NFR services.