Effective capacity-based delay performance estimators for LTE radio bearer QoS provision

The long term evolution (LTE) technology supports end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS). QoS-supported systems assess QoS performance of different traffic flows and then allocate resources to balance QoS among these flows. For assessing delay performance, there are two effective capacity-based estimators: the conventional Effective Capacity (EC) estimator and the discrete-time EC estimator. In this work, an integration of these estimators into LTE radio bearers is proposed. Furthermore, a comparison of these two estimators is undertaken. We build a multi-layer simulation platform of video streaming over LTE downlink air interface. Results indicate that the discrete-time EC estimator is more appropriate for LTE networks.