Efficient traffic offloading for seamless connectivity in 5G networks onboard high speed trains

Seamless wireless connectivity in high mobility scenarios (> 300 km/h), is one of the fundamental key requirements for the future 5G networks. High speed train (HST) is one of the preferred mid-range transportation systems, and highlights the challenges of providing wireless connectivity in high mobility scenarios for the 5G networks. Advanced version of Long Term Evolution (LTE-A) from the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) with peak data rate up to 100 Mbps in high mobility scenarios paved the road toward high quality and cost effective onboard Internet in HSTs. However, frequent handovers (HO) of large number of onboard users increase the service interruptions that in turn inevitably decrease the experienced quality of service (QoS). In this paper, according to the two-tier architecture of the HST wireless connectivity, we propose a novel and practically viable onboard traffic offloading mechanism among the HST carriages that effectively mitigates the service interruptions caused by frequent HOs of massive number of onboard users. The proposed architecture does not imply any change on the LTE network standardization. Conclusions are supported by numerical results for realistic LTE parameters and current HST settings.