Network Coordination Function for Uplink Traffic Steering in Tightly Coupled LTE Wi-Fi Networks

Pasca, Thomas Valerrian and Patro, Sumanta and Tamma, Bheemarjuna Reddy and Franklin, Antony (2017) Network Coordination Function for Uplink Traffic Steering in Tightly Coupled LTE Wi-Fi Networks. Computer Networks, 127. pp. 296-316. ISSN 1389-1286

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Abstract

Tight coupling of LTE and Wi-Fi networks is accomplished by binding their protocol stacks. LTE Wi-Fi radio level integration with IPSec tunnel (LWIP) corresponds to realizing this binding at IP layer. A collocated deployment of LWIP enables greater flexibility in utilizing the channel efficiently. With the advent of bandwidth-hungry smartphone Apps and IoT applications, the cellular uplink resources become highly demanding. This enforces Wi-Fi to support efficient uplink transmissions since the uplink transmissions through Wi-Fi suffers high contention because of distributed nature of Wi-Fi MAC. In order to improve Wi-Fi channel utilization by leveraging the potential of LWIP in controlling and coordinating the transmissions through LTE and Wi-Fi links, we introduce Network Coordination Function (NCF) in LWIP. The proposed NCF focuses on coordinating the uplink transmissions through Wi-Fi in a network with high load. NCF enhances the channel utilization of Wi-Fi network by regulating the packet arrival rate to the Wi-Fi link and also by revamping medium access techniques at the Wi-Fi interface of users associated with LWIP node. NCF is composed of four different uplink traffic steering algorithms with diverse objectives which improve Wi-Fi channel utilization by (i) minimizing collisions among LWIP users, (ii) increasing transmission opportunities for Wi-Fi users that are connected to legacy Wi-Fi APs operating on the same channel, and (iii) ensuring fairness for both LWIP and Wi-Fi users. Interestingly, NCF has not only improved the throughput of LWIP users but also the throughput of Wi-Fi users. Simulation experiments reveal that NCF has reduced collisions in the Wi-Fi uplink by 13-53% and improved throughput by 10-37% as compared to Wi-Fi offloading and Distributed Coordination Function (DCF).

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IITH Creators:
IITH CreatorsORCiD
Tamma, Bheemarjuna ReddyUNSPECIFIED
Franklin, AntonyUNSPECIFIED
Item Type: Article
Additional Information: This work was supported by the project “Converged Cloud Communication Technologies”, Meity, Govt. of India, Project Grant No: R-23011/3/2014-R&D.
Uncontrolled Keywords: LTE-Wi-Fi Aggregation; Traffic steering; Interworking; Link Aggregation; LWIP
Subjects: Computer science > Wireless Networks
Divisions: Department of Computer Science & Engineering
Depositing User: Team Library
Date Deposited: 05 Sep 2017 10:58
Last Modified: 25 Sep 2017 04:33
URI: http://raiith.iith.ac.in/id/eprint/3523
Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2017.08.024
OA policy: http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/issn/1389-1286/
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