An Analysis of the Network Selection Problem for Heterogeneous Environments with User-Operator Joint Satisfaction and Multi-RAT Transmission

The trend in wireless networks is that several wireless radio access technologies (RATs) coexist in the same area, forming heterogeneous networks in which the users may connect to any of the available RATs. The problem of associating a user to the most suitable RAT, known as network selection problem (NSP), is of capital importance for the satisfaction of the users in these emerging environments. However, also the satisfaction of the operator is important in this scenario. In this work, we propose that a connection may be served by more than one RAT by using multi-RAT terminals. We formulate the NSP with multiple RAT association based on utility functions that take into consideration both user’s satisfaction and provider’s satisfaction. As users are characterized according to their expected quality of service, our results exhaustively analyze the influence of the user’s profile, along with the network topology and the type of applications served.

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