Utility Fair Rate Allocation in LTE/802.11 Networks

We consider proportional fair rate allocation in a heterogeneous network with a mix of LTE and 802.11 cells which supports multipath and multihomed operation (simultaneous connection of a user device to multiple LTE base stations and 802.11 access points). We show that the utility fair optimization problem is non-convex but that a global optimum can be found by solving a sequence of convex optimizations in a distributed fashion. The result is a principled approach to offload from LTE to 802.11 and for exploiting LTE/802.11 path diversity to meet user traffic demands.