HOF: A History-based Offloading Framework for LTE networks using mobile small cells and Wi-Fi

Small cell deployments are seen as a promising solution for mobile operators due to their potential to improve coverage and increase capacity for indoor areas in a cost-efficient way. Meanwhile, other deployment scenarios are also being sought, such as in public transportation vehicles including buses and streetcars. In this paper, we propose a novel History-based Offloading Framework (HOF) to relieve overburdened macro networks from data traffic generated by mobile users in public transportation vehicles by utilizing small cells and Wi-Fi networks. A small base station (SBS) is installed onboard the vehicle; called a mobile SBS (mobSBS). Mobile users communicate with the mobSBS instead of the distant Macro base station (macroBS). In order to have efficient offloading in terms of bandwidth utilization, mobile data users are prioritized according to different pre-set classes. Our framework takes into account the mobile user's priority and service history to alleviate the effects of non-incessant Wi-Fi availability in order to maximize the offloaded macrocell data traffic. Extensive simulation results have shown that our proposed framework is highly effective in terms of the average offloaded macroBSs data traffic and the total count of offloaded users from the macroBSs.