Energy-efficient enhancements for IEEE 802.11 WLANs : On the way to enable Cellular/Wi-Fi networks interworking

Abstract: Globally, the number of mobile broadband subscriptions is growing and the amount of mobile data traffic is expected to continue to grow rapidly. In the next five years the number of smartphone subscriptions is expected to more than double, while the amount of mobile traffic per active subscription per month of these subscribers is expected to nearly quadruple. As a consequence, mobile network operators (MNOs) aim to increase radio network capacity and coverage through heterogeneous deployments. In such heterogeneous networks, wireless local area networks (WLANs) are integrated with wireless wide area networks (WWANs), and there exist a tight interaction between them. The almost-ubiquitous support for IEEE802.11 WLANs (usually referred to as Wi-Fi®) makes this radio access technology a potential integrated component of near-future mobile broadband. With Wi-Fi completely integrated into mobile access, MNOs would optimize user experience and use of resources by controlling device’s choice of connectivity. In addition to guaranteeing the best user experience, optimal use of access networks should care about energy-efficiency in order to extend device’s battery life. However, the performance of Wi-Fi is far from meet neither energy-efficiency nor quality of service (QoS) user’s requirements. This radio access technology employs an energy-consuming medium access control (MAC) protocol that wastes both bandwidth and device’s energy resources. Therefore, enhanced MAC protocols, cleverly combined with standardized power saving mechanisms such as automatic power save delivery (APSD), would improve both energy-efficiency and QoS in order to enhance WLANs performance and meet user’s expectations. In addition, current WLAN discovery mechanisms neither meet requirements of the integrated scenario. Handover operations must be improved in terms of energy efficiency and latency. Consequently, enhanced handover schemes should reduce overall device’s energy consumption during the process, and enable seamless handover between Wi-Fi APs and between cellular/Wi-Fi networks. During this thesis project, the main challenges of Wi-Fi towards its integration into mobile access broadband have been analyzed. Consequently, a solution has been designed in order to address the identified challenges, which have been introduced in the previous paragraphs. The solution consists of enhancements for IEEE 802.11 WLANs based on current standards that achieve energy-efficiency and QoS, and facilitate Wi-Fi/cellular networks interworking. Finally, a custom-designed simulator has been used to evaluate the proposed solution.