Analysis of access network selection ane switching metrics for LTE and WiFi HetNets

The number of communication networks' users using bandwidth-intensive application, such as video-streaming, video-conferencing, and multi-player gaming is on the rise. To handle a large number of such users, the bandwidth of cellular networks is becoming scarce. Nowadays, most user equipments (mobile phones, tablets, net-books, etc) support multiple radio access technologies (RATs), such as long-term evolution (LTE) and WiFi. Therefore, cellular network service providers are using multiple RATs to increase their networks' capacity, and such networks are called heterogeneous networks (HetNets). Usually, in a HetNet, a user equipment (UE) selects an access network based on the network service provider's priority list. An access network selection based on the priority list may not result in an efficient utilization of the available networks' resources. Therefore, in this paper we focus on continuously monitoring the state of a HetNet using received signal strength indicator (RSSI), throughput, and delay metrics. Based on these metrics, we present access network selection and switching algorithms. Our experimental results demonstrate that, if the aggregate data generation rate of UEs in a HetNet is higher than the achievable data rate on LTE uplink, RSSI is the best metric for the access network selection and switching. Otherwise, the metrics demonstrate similar performance.