Free Access Distributed Queue Protocol for Massive Cellular-Based M2M Communications with Bursty Traffic

Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks are expected to play a key role in providing connections to billions of Machine-Type Devices (MTDs) in the 5G big picture. Since the ALOHA-based access framework of LTE-A alone cannot support bursty massive access scenarios caused by the MTDs, the 3GPP has additionally employed the Access Class Barring (ACB) scheme as the baseline traffic control method. While the scheme certainly improves access success probability of the devices, corresponding delay degradation may be unacceptable. In this paper, we renounce the ALOHA-based framework of LTE to propose a new protocol, namely the Free Access Distributed Queue (FADQ), accompanied by an estimation method to resolve the massive synchronized access issue in a more efficient manner. Simulations under the 3GPP's reference setup show that FADQ protocol significantly reduces access delay while maintaining an access success probability on par with the ACB.