Index Policies for Resource Allocation in Wireless Networks

We consider the problem of resource allocation for data transfer between the base station and the users within a cell of a wireless telecommunication network with infinite data queues for each user. The aim is to study the tradeoff between the conflicting objectives of maximizing the system throughput and the quality of service (QoS) to an individual user. Using a policy improvement approach based on Markov decision processes, we develop an intuitive and easy-to-implement index policy. We also demonstrate its superior performance over the existing proportional fair metric algorithm through simulation experiments.