Performance comparisons between cellular-only and cellular/WLAN integrated systems based on analytical models

Abstract

To solve the traffic load imbalance issue in cellular networks, which is often in the form of hot-spots caused by the different user mobility levels, one of the good solutions at present is to construct heterogeneous integrated wireless networks that combine cellular networks and wireless local area networks (WLANs) together. In general, the traffic volume is significantly heavier in the hot-spots of cellular networks and a higher data transferring rate can be provided by introducing aWLAN so as to raise the utilization of the channel and achieve a good balance between user satisfaction and the efficiency of the network. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive performance comparison of the systems both before and after the integration, based on an existing mathematical model, focusing on both the qualitative and the quantitative analysis of changes in the performance of the system to validate the efficiency and superiority of the cellular/WLAN integrated systems over cellular–only systems.

Keywords

cellular network / WLAN / heterogeneous wireless network / performance evaluation / traffic load balance / horizontal handover / vertical handover

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2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg