Proactive Allocation of Radio Resources to Enhance Service Continuity in Cellular Networks

Mobile communication is one of the most widely used technologies in today's world, which is on the verge of its fifth-generation (5G). Mobile broadband services are frequently availed by users (e.g., vehicular infotainment) on the go. Providing a consistent service quality to the user despite his mobility is a key challenge for network operators. The cellular service area is often associated with coverage holes, where the received signal quality is too poor to maintain a desired service quality. Further, deep shadowed holes would lead to signal loss and service interruption. Acquiring beforehand knowledge of a user encountering a coverage hole in his near future will be beneficial in designing smart resource allocation schemes. In this paper, a proactive allocation of radio resources is presented based on the forecast of a coverage hole in the user's immediate route. A Markov model enhanced with the start and terminus information of a user is used for the prediction. The user anticipated to experience a coverage hole imminently is allocated more resources appropriately and data buffering is facilitated. The simulation results show a significant improvement in user throughput and a major reduction in service interruption (for streaming service) while traversing routes associated with coverage holes. Further, this paper also highlights recent advancements in the 5G system (5GS) architecture that are vital for the deployment of the presented scheme and associated data analytics.