Network virtualization for Mobile Operators in Software-Defined based LTE networks

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel cellular network architecture including network virtualization controller for mobile core and backhaul sharing. Software-Defined Networking (SDN) based network virtualization is applied into Evolved Packet System (EPS) architecture of Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks. After virtualization of all evolved Node-Bs (eNodeBs) associated with different Mobile Operators (MOs) as a consequence of mobile core and backhaul sharing, the performances of eNodeB assignment mechanisms with the use of quality-of-service (QoS)-aware and QoS-unaware scheduling algorithms are investigated and compared with currently deployed static eNodeB distributions through Monte-Carlo simulations. Jain's fairness index, Shannon capacity and satisfied-MO-ratio are considered as the key performance indicators (KPIs). The results reveal that our proposed architecture outperforms the currently deployed network architecture as depending on proper scheduler selection.