On the Reliability of LTE Random Access: Performance Bounds for Machine-to-Machine Burst Resolution Time

TL;DR

This paper investigates the probabilistic performance limits of LTE RACH for M2M burst resolution time using stochastic network calculus, providing bounds that help in system design and reliability assessment.

Contribution

It introduces a probabilistic analysis of LTE RACH performance bounds for burst resolution time, addressing a gap in understanding worst-case scenarios.

Findings

Derived probabilistic bounds for burst resolution time.

Validated the accuracy of the stochastic network calculus approach.

Potential applications in system dimensioning and reliability assessment.

Abstract

Random Access Channel (RACH) has been identified as one of the major bottlenecks for accommodating massive number of machine-to-machine (M2M) users in LTE networks, especially for the case of burst arrival of connection requests. As a consequence, the burst resolution problem has sparked a large number of works in the area, analyzing and optimizing the average performance of RACH. However, the understanding of what are the probabilistic performance limits of RACH is still missing. To address this limitation, in the paper, we investigate the reliability of RACH with access class barring (ACB). We model RACH as a queuing system, and apply stochastic network calculus to derive probabilistic performance bounds for burst resolution time, i.e., the worst case time it takes to connect a burst of M2M devices to the base station. We illustrate the accuracy of the proposed methodology and its potential applications in performance assessment and system dimensioning.