A scalable overload control algorithm for massive access in machine-to-machine networks

The random access (RA) procedure used in Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) suffers from frequent collisions, and thus it is inefficient for machine-to-machine (M2M) networks with massive access. In such networks, network overload problem arises as a performance bottleneck that leads to high resource wastage and severe access delay. Therefore, developing efficient overload control algorithms plays an essential role in future M2M communication. In this paper, we introduce a distributed scalable algorithm that is able to efficiently allocate the available network resources to massive number of devices with bounded delay and reduced overhead. Additionally, the algorithm overcomes the resource wastage problem resulted from RA collisions, and thus, it achieves full resource utilization. Our simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the existing dynamic access class barring (DACB) algorithm in terms of service time, access delay, and blocking probability.