Network-centric user assignment in the next generation mobile networks

This letter addresses the user assignment problem for multimedia streaming applications in heterogeneous multicast-enabled wireless networks using a network-centric strategy. The optimal problem is mathematically formulated and proven to be non-deterministic polynomial-time (NP)-hard. An efficient heuristic algorithm is then proposed to find sub-optimal solutions in practical systems. Simulation results demonstrate the improved performance of this heuristic in comparison to a conventional user-centric algorithm