Dimensioning virtualized wireless access networks from a common pool of resources

摘要

Resource sharing in mobile wireless networks has been employed to reduce costs, extend coverage, and ease the entry of new players in the market. The introduction of programmability and virtualization is expected to amplify these benefits of resource sharing. In this paper, we study a new virtualization-based paradigm for resource sharing in mobile wireless networks. Specifically, we consider the problem of resource allocation, particularly when user demands are uncertain. We formulate several two-stage sequential stochastic allocation schemes that provide tradeoffs between cost and user satisfaction. These allocation schemes are studied under different resource provider pricing models. Our simulations demonstrate that: First, while reducing cost significantly, virtualization considerably improves user satisfaction, and virtualization gains increase with the number of operators that share resources. Second, the improvements in cost, user satisfaction, and resource usage increase substantially with the level of user clustering.