User and traffic allocation in wireless single-tier dense networks with multi-connectivity

In dense single tier networks, users can have access to multiple cells. Multi-connectivity (MC) enhances user through-puts and the reliability and robustness of the transmission. The work presented here aims at the cell selection process as well as traffic management to further enhance the throughput and QoS for all users, in a single-tier dense network. Using a bin packing problem formulation, several user association and traffic allocation algorithms have been assessed through simulations in a realistic deployment with 3 frequency channels and packet transmission. MC enhances the packet throughputs to an extend depending on the traffic load and its possible asymmetry between cells. SINR based user association is a robust choice in such a scenario. When using MC, the QoS and fairness must be done at the network level and not left at the resource scheduler at the cell level. The effect of the scheduler can be countered by transferring the right amount of data to the cell for each packet.