Algorithmic Aspects of Access Networks Design in B3G/4G Cellular Networks

— The forthcoming 4G cellular systems will provide broadband wireless access to a variety of advanced data and voice services. In order to do that, these networks will have a significantly larger number of base stations and a much higher bandwidth demand from their radio access networks. This will motivate operators to replace the commonly used star based architecture, in which an RNC is connected to a set of base stations via direct links, with a more complex tree structure, in which a base station can be connected to an RNC via other base stations. In this paper we address algorithmic aspects of this challenging design problem, in which tree-topology is used to connect base stations and RNCs. We formulate the problem as an optimization problem and prove that it is NP-hard to approximate it in the general case. For the metric case, however, we develop an O(log n)approximation algorithm. We then study the performance of this algorithm and several other heuristics in practical scenar...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: INFOCOM
• Authors: David Amzallag, Joseph Naor, Danny Raz
• Keywords: Base Stations, Broadband Wireless Access, Communications, INFOCOM 2007, Practical Scenarios