摘要
Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) offloading is an important approach to address the data traffic challenge faced by Long Term Evolution (LTE) network. Legacy offloading solutions based on the core network suffer from the limitations of load unbalance and user experience degradation. To solve this problem, 3GPP has recently proposed a radio access network (RAN) assisted WLAN offloading scheme. In this article, we thoroughly analyze the performance of this new scheme, with emphasis on the RAN auxiliary parameters and control rules defined in it. Furthermore, two kinds of offloading algorithms based on this scheme are proposed and compared with the traditional solutions by simulation. Results show that the RAN-assisted offloading scheme can increase average user throughput and leverage resources available in both LTE and WLAN systems.
Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) offloading is an important approach to address the data traffic challenge faced by Long Term Evolution (LTE) network. Legacy offloading solutions based on the core network suffer from the limitations of load unbalance and user experience degradation. To solve this problem, 3GPP has recently proposed a radio access network (RAN) assisted WLAN offloading scheme. In this article, we thoroughly analyze the performance of this new scheme, with emphasis on the RAN auxiliary parameters and control rules defined in it. Furthermore, two kinds of offloading algorithms based on this scheme are proposed and compared with the traditional solutions by simulation. Results show that the RAN-assisted offloading scheme can increase average user throughput and leverage resources available in both LTE and WLAN systems.
