Probabilistic Stability of Traffic Load Balancing on Wireless Complex Networks

TL;DR

This paper provides an analytical and probabilistic framework for understanding the stability of load balancing in wireless networks, relating local dynamics and topology to network stability under uncertainty.

Contribution

It introduces a novel exact analytical and probabilistic relationship linking load balancing dynamics, network topology, and uncertainty, applicable to any generalized load balancing and deployment.

Findings

Derived a probabilistic stability condition for load balancing networks

Established a relationship valid for any load balancing dynamics and topology

Provided insights for joint design of load balancing and network topology

Abstract

Load balancing between adjacent base stations (BSs) is important for balancing load distributions and improving service provisioning. Whilst load balancing between any given pair of BSs is beneficial, cascade load sharing can cause network level instability that is hard to predict. The relationship between each BS's load balancing dynamics and the network topology is not understood. In this seminal work on stability analysis, we consider a frequency re-use network with no interference, whereby load balancing dynamics doesn't perturb the individual cells' capacity. Our novelty is to show an exact analytical and also a probabilistic relationship for stability, relating generalized local load balancing dynamics with generalized network topology, as well as the uncertainty we have in load balancing parameters. We prove that the stability analysis given is valid for any generalized load balancing dynamics and topological cell deployment and we believe this general relationship can inform the joint design of both the load balancing dynamics and the neighbour list of the network.