Non-Saturated Throughput Analysis of Coexistence of Wi-Fi and Cellular With Listen-Before-Talk in Unlicensed Spectrum

TL;DR

This paper models the coexistence of Wi-Fi and cellular networks with non-saturated traffic using Markov chains, providing guidelines for optimal contention window settings to maximize total throughput while ensuring fairness.

Contribution

It introduces a novel Markov chain model for cellular SCBSs with LBT in non-saturated conditions and derives optimal contention window sizes for coexistence.

Findings

Optimal contention window size for cellular SCBSs identified

Total network throughput maximized under specific traffic conditions

Guidelines for cellular operators on LBT parameter tuning

Abstract

This paper analyzes the coexistence performance of Wi-Fi and cellular networks conditioned on non-saturated traffic in the unlicensed spectrum. Under the condition, the time-domain behavior of a cellular small-cell base station (SCBS) with a listen-before-talk (LBT) procedure is modeled as a Markov chain, and it is combined with a Markov chain which describes the time-domain behavior of a Wi-Fi access point. Using the proposed model, this study finds the optimal contention window size of cellular SCBSs in which total throughput of both networks is maximized while satisfying the required throughput of each network, under the given traffic densities of both networks. This will serve as a guideline for cellular operators with respect to performing LBT at cellular SCBSs according to the changes of traffic volumes of both networks over time.