A novel UE centric multi-RAT deployment model

Today's User Equipment (UE) is enabled with multiple Radio Access Technologies (multi-RAT), e.g., GSM, UMTS, LTE, WLAN etc., to support ubiquitous and mobile computing. So, a key feature of UE is to support multi-RAT mobility procedures, whose performances need to be carefully evaluated. For this purpose, a multi-RAT deployment model, as experienced by the UE would be useful. To the best of our knowledge, existing methods/models for this purpose are network centric and/or have shortcomings, like cost, scalability and inability to mimic a real multi-RAT deployment, which is based on operator's business needs. We propose a novel UE centric multi-RAT deployment model combining business requirements of network operator (modeled with Analytical Hierarchical Process) and technical aspect of RATs, e.g., received signal strength, path loss, etc. (using radio propagation models). Simulation results illustrate how RAT selection, multi-RAT mobility and call success/drop procedures in a UE can be evaluated using our model. One of the results show for a UE attempting calls, the percentages of call success is 83%, overall call drops is 16% and only multi-RAT call drops is 1%.