A Decoupled 5G Network Control Framework: Distributed Adaptation and Centralized Coordination

A promising and cost-e ective way to connect massively and densely deployed 5G smallcells is through existing Internet infrastructure. However, severe delays of hundreds of milliseconds over Internet and signi cantly increased complexity due to massive networks impose critical challenges to 5G network control. Traditional centralized network control can neither cope with such delays nor scale to massive networks. Excessive inter-smallcell interfer- ence would occur. We introduce a new 5G network control structure which is tolerant to the severe delay and massive network scale. The key idea is to decouple delay-sensitive power control from the delay-tolerant channel assignment. The delay-sensitive power control can be decentralized, and formulated as a non-cooperative game. As a result, timely control with stringent delay requirements is eliminated. The delay-tolerant channel assignment is modelled as an evolutionary clustering game, so that the control complex- ity can be distributed among the smallcells and becomes practically acceptable. Performance studies show that the new decoupled 5G network control is e ective for timely interference mitigation. The stability and scalability of the new 5G network control are also demonstrated.