Spectral Efficiency and Fairness Tradeoffs in Cellular Networks with Realtime+Nonrealtime Traffic Mix Using Stochastic Petri Nets

Resource scheduling in OFDMA cellular wireless networks is a powerful technique on the MAC layer. Utilizing adaptive modulation and coding allows the effective use of all signal-to-interference ratio (SINR) ranges. Typical single antenna spectral efficiency values for LTE-Advanced range between 4.8 near the base station and 0.2 b/s/Hz at the cell edge. With best-effort traffic and full buffer assumption the tradeoff between emphasizing the cell center or cell edge can be explored extensively. However, with real-time traffic present, this takes priority without fairness adjustment alternatives. In this paper the mixed traffic scenario is studied with an abstract stochastic Petri net model. The exploration of the degrees of freedom by studying the real-time traffic proportion and a fairness adjustment parameter provides new insight to the potential feasible region. The results show that the tradeoff between emphasizing the cell edge performance and maintaining a high average spectral efficiency is most powerful in the best-effort case, while an increasing level of real-time traffic reduces the room for a tradeoff. The stochastic Petri net analysis approach allows numeric analysis without simulation by utilizing Markov chain equivalence and steady state calculations. This model is deliberately abstract but flexible enough to study the tradeoff.