Performance Comparison of QoS Deployment Strategies for Cellular Network Services

Differentiated quality-of-Service (QoS) techniques are widely used to distinguish between different service classes and prioritize service needs in mobile networks. Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) utilize QoS techniques to develop strategies that are supported by the mobile network infrastructure. However, QoS deployment strategy can ensure that the radio resources provided by the base station are easily consumed if it is not used correctly or when different techniques are used all together. In this paper, we propose a scheduling algorithm and compare two different QoS deployment strategies for prioritized User Equipment (UEs) (with higher scheduling rates and dedicated bandwidth) that MNOs can use in the current infrastructure, using a commercial real-time Long Term Evolution (LTE) network in different test scenarios. Moreover, we expose the real-time user experience in terms of uplink throughput and analyze results of the UE's real-time key performance indicators (KPIs) in detail. Experiment results are evaluated considering the implications of different QoS support types on network coverage and capacity planning optimizations. Our results demonstrate that even though pre-configured resource allocations can be given to prioritize UEs, the experience of all the UEs can be affected unexpectedly in the presence of many UEs who have received different QoS deployment support. Our experimental observations have revealed that location of the UEs with respect to Base Station (BS) and the availability of dedicated bandwidth UEs inside cell may have implications on the apriori defined resource allocation strategies of the other UEs.