A rate-based bandwidth borrowing and reservation scheme for cellular networks

In 3G cellular networks and beyond, a wide variety of different services are/will be provided by the operators. Due to QoS reasons, it is preferable to give higher priority to certain connection types. These include calls carrying delay-sensitive services and already ongoing calls. In this paper, a prioritization method combining bandwidth borrowing and reservation, called BBR, is introduced. BBR monitors the rate-adaptiveness of the ongoing calls in a cell. Simultaneously, advanced movement predictions are applied to estimate the arrival rate to each cell. If it is determined that the use of bandwidth borrowing (temporarily reducing the data rate of other calls in the same cell) is not sufficient to support the high priority calls that are expected to arrive, a portion of the assigned bandwidth to the cell is exclusively reserved for these calls to prevent call dropping. The scheme enables the operator to increase the average user satisfaction in the network. This is achieved by defining appropriate penalty functions for blocking, dropping and bandwidth reduction of a call.