An effective approach to 5G: Wireless network virtualization

Nowadays, the explosively growing demands for mobile service bring both challenges and opportunities to wireless networks, giving birth to fifth generation (5G) mobile networks. The features and requirements of different services are diverse in 5G. The management and coordination among heterogeneous networks, applications, and user demands need the 5G network to be open and flexible to ensure that network resources are allocated with high efficiency. To fulfill these requirements, wireless network virtualization is used to integrate heterogeneous wireless networks and coordinate network resources. In this article we propose a model of wireless network virtualization consisting of three planes: the data plane, the cognitive plane, and the control plane. A novel control signaling scheme has also been designed to support the proposed model. From the implementation perspective of network virtualization, a hierarchical control scheme based on cell-clustering has been used with dynamically optimized efficiency of resource utilization. Two use cases have been analyzed to demonstrate how the schemes work under the proposed model to improve resource efficiency and the user experience.