Break-Even Point-Based Radio Resource Management for Fair Coexistence Between U-LTE and Wi-Fi

The unprecedented growth in cellular traffic forced researchers towards extending the Long Term Evolution (LTE) cellular network to unlicensed bands, which is known as U-LTE. However, this extension is by no means straightforward. Due to the centralized control of traditional LTE Base Stations (BSs) radio resources management of U-LTE system is facing numerous challenges. Hence, for the first time, we propose a novel approach for solving the radio resources management problem by applying Break-Even economics. In this case, we calculate the Break Even Point (BEP) of a Wi-Fi or Small cell Programmable Base Station (SPBS) as the equilibrium point where the total remaining throughput equals to the total consuming throughput by Users Equipment (UEs) at a given time. Thus we can identify if Wi-Fi and/or SPBS/ Femtocells are working above or below BEP. By using proposed BEP analytics, we can guarantee U-LTE spectrum utilizations with optimal precision. Performance evaluation indicates how the scheme provides optimal spectrum access and fair resource distribution by using BEP scheme.