Virtualization and Programmability in Mobile Wireless Networks: Architecture and Resource Management

We present a high-level end-to-end architecture for virtualization and programmability in next-generation mobile wireless networks. Our architecture envisions three major players: Service Providers, who wish to orchestrate wireless networks with particular characteristics to support particular applications; Resource Providers, who contribute resources such as spectrum, access points, backhaul infrastructure, and computing; and Virtual Network Builders, who marshal resources into networks for Service Providers. We take into account resource sharing and investigate how virtualization and programmability affect resource management. We show that: (i) virtualization reduces cost significantly, (ii) this cost reduction does not degrade the user satisfaction, and (iii) non-virtualized networks need to keep a large amount of idle capacity to satisfy coverage.