On Mobile Data Offloading Policies in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

The rapidly increasing demand for mobile data services urges operators to explore alternative technologies to handle the voluminous data traffic on their networks. In this regard, mobile data offloading is expected to become a key industry segment in near future. In this paper, we propose a policy based offloading framework for cellular network which is based on a cost function approach. We discuss user centric, network centric and hybrid policies where the decision making is shared between the user and the network. We also present a novel mechanism for the decision sharing between user and network which is based on principles of autonomic networking and where policies are chosen dynamically according to the variation of network conditions and the operator strategies. Detailed simulation studies are conducted to validate the effectiveness of these policies in real networks.