Publications

Dynamic RAT Selection and Pricing for Efficient Traffic Allocation in 5G HetNets

Authors: Virgilios Passas, Vasileios Miliotis, Nikos Makris and Thanasis Korakis

Conference:  IEEE International Conference on Communications 20-24 May 2019, Shanghai, China

Abstract: The foreseen distributed heterogeneous infrastructure of 5G will constitute a highly versatile resource ecosystem that needs efficient approaches regarding traffic allocation management. In this paper, we focus on 5G heterogeneous networks, considering the existence of multiple Distributed Units (DUs) that can provide access to end users implementing several access technologies, managed by a Central Unit (CU) responsible for the allocation of network resources. Based on a distributed dynamic pricing scheme, that gives to User Equipment (UE) the ability to select the appropriate Radio Access Technology (RAT) depending on its sensitivity to congestion, we investigate a scheme of greater granularity, where UEs are able to allocate each of their traffic classes to the appropriate RAT, exploiting their multi-homing features. As UEs are sequentially polled to request for network resources, we develop a centrally controlled proportionally fair ranking as a benchmark policy. We then propose a dynamic polling policy that presents close performance to the benchmark policy, while maintaining a distributed nature. We evaluate our framework for a variety of traffic classes in terms of Quality of Service (QoS) requirements, and we provide results on capacity utilization and load distribution over available RATs, as well as access price variations.

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Demo: Real LTE Experimentation in a Controlled Environment

Authors: Vasilis Maglogiannis, Dries Naudts, Ingrid Moerman, Nikos Makris, Thanasis Korakis

Conference:  ACM Mobihoc 2015, Hangzhou, China, 18-22 June 2015

Abstract: LTE, commonly known as 4G, stands for Long-TermLTE, commonly known as 4G, stands for Long-TermEvolution and is a wireless communication technologystandardized by 3GPP. LTE adoption has increaseddrastically over the last years, and today is integratedwidely in a vast number of wireless devices. However,significant restrictions, such as the increased equipmentcost and the acquisition of licensed spectrum, rendersexperimentation with real LTE equipment very difficult.Recently, iMinds w-iLab.t testbed has been extended withcommercial LTE equipment and an EPC (Evolved PacketCore) software platform, offering the opportunity toorchestrate and execute real LTE experiments, herebyproviding full access to the most relevant configurable LTEparameters of the network. In this paper, we describe anLTE demonstration scenario that showcases various usecases and the respective experimental settings that can beconducted on the LTE testbed.

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Design and Evaluation of a Hierarchical SDN Control Plane for 5G Transport Network

Authors: D. Giatsios, K.Choumas, P.Flegkas, T. Korakis, J.J. Aleixendri Cruelles and D.Camps Mur

Conference:   IEEE ICC 2019, Shanghai,China, 20-24 May 2019

Abstract: Software-defined networking is at the root of future 5G network design. Among others, it allows for automated network reconfiguration and network slicing support. In this paper we present an implementation of a hierarchical control plane in the transport network architecture envisioned by the 5GPICTURE project. We analyze the implementation of the slicing mechanism at the network edge and the end-to-end path establishment procedure, which involves interactions within a hierarchy of controllers. We also evaluate the latency performance of our control plane solution, by means of testbed experimentation.

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Pricing Based MEC Resource Allocation for 5G Heterogeneous Network Access

Authors: V. Passas, N. Makris, V. Miliotis and T. Korakis

Conference:  IEEE Globecom 2019, Waikoloa, USA, 09-13 Dec 2019

Abstract: Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) is expected to play an important role in next generation networks, as it is able to provide resources accessible through multiple wireless technologies located close to the network edge. MEC is therefore an enabler for low-latency applications, allowing novel time critical services to be offered through mobile networks. Nevertheless, hosting multiple service providers over the same physical infrastructure shall carefully consider the needs of the MEC enabled applications. Moreover, different suggested placements for the MEC service provide fertile ground for the differentiation of the hosted service providers. In the meantime, the integration of multiple technologies in the wireless access of the MEC concept is increasing the complexity for efficient allocation of network and computational resources among the involved stakeholders. In this work, we model the MEC resource allocation problem for different service providers by using a pricing scheme. We consider two different deployments for the MEC services when considering a multi-technology Cloud-RAN base station: either at the fronthaul interface or located at the Core Network. We integrate intelligence to the MEC enabled framework, by considering the available links through which each client is served. We employ testbed experimentation in order to illustrate the efficiency of our scheme and demonstrate how we achieve efficient allocation of the MEC resources and wireless technologies used for the system under consideration.

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More Articles ...

  1. 5G-PICTURE: A Programmable Multi-Tenant 5G Compute-RAN-Transport Infrastructure
  2. Spectrum Coordination for Disaggregated Ultra Dense Heterogeneous 5G Networks
  3. Virtualized Heterogeneous 5G Cloud-RAN deployment over Redundant Wireless Links
  4. MEC service placement over the Fronthaul of 5G Cloud-RANs