A Prioritised Traffic Embedding Mechanism enabling a Public Safety Virtual Operator

TL;DR

This paper proposes a prioritised traffic embedding mechanism for a virtual public safety operator using shared LTE infrastructure, enabling reliable emergency services while balancing commercial network use.

Contribution

It introduces a novel spectrum allocation method for virtual public safety operators on commercial LTE networks, enhancing reliability during emergencies.

Findings

Prioritised traffic embedding improves emergency service reliability.

Spectrum sharing impacts commercial operator performance.

The proposed mechanism maintains service quality during peak times.

Abstract

Public Protection and Distaster Relief (PPDR) services can benefit greatly from the availability of mobile broadband communications in disaster and emergency scenarios. While undoubtedly offering full control and reliability, dedicated networks for PPDR have resulted in high operating costs and a lack of innovation in comparison to the commercial domain. Driven by the many benefits of broadband communications, PPDR operators are increasingly interested in adopting mainstream commercial technologies such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) in favour of expensive, dedicated narrow-band networks. In addition, the emergence of virtualization for wireless networks offers a new model for sharing infrastructure between several operators in a flexible and customizable manner. In this context, we propose a virtual Public Safety (PS) operator that relies on shared infrastructure of commercial LTE networks to deliver services to its users. We compare several methods of allocating spectrum resources between virtual operators at peak times and examine how this influences differing traffic services. We show that it is possible to provide services to the PS users reliably during both normal and emergency operation, and examine the impact on the commercial operators.