User Association for Network Slicing-Enabled Heterogeneous Hybrid Wireless-Wireline Access Networks

Hybrid wireless-wireline access networks (HWWANs) allow simultaneous use of wireless and wireline interfaces to improve bandwidth, increase coverage and achieve higher throughput, particularly for underserved wireline networks. However, existing studies have yet to consider the user association problem of heterogeneous-HWWANs (Het-HWWAN), which is crucial for load balancing and efficient allocation of resources among users. Moreover, these studies lack resource isolation capabilities among HWWANs and other services, which may degrade the network performance. This paper proposes an efficient user association scheme for a network slicing-enabled Het-HWWAN. We formulate a user association problem to maximize the network’s throughput, subject to the network slices’ available sub-channels at each base station (BS). It is then solved using convex optimization. Simulation results show the efficiency of the proposed scheme in terms of call blocking probability and percentage of satisfied users.