A price-based approach to optimize resource sharing between cellular data networks and WLANs

The next Generation Network involves multiple access network technologies. Cellular/WLAN integration has widely been considered to be an economical and effective solution for wireless service providers to provision high bandwidth services to meet the increasing demand for data-oriented applications. Nevertheless, technological and operational differences between these two types of networks has resulted in different quality of service and usage patterns. In addition, the different authentication and charging methods has made the management of cellular/WLAN integration a challenging proposition. This paper focuses on charging methods for cellular/WLAN integration. It introduces a novel pricing model that takes into account application characteristics, user profiles, and network congestion status in order to dynamically adjust the charging rates of cellular and WLAN services. Based on this model, an incentive engineering mechanisms is developed that encourages the use of the most appropriate network for a given application based on its service priority and the current network congestion status. By adjusting the charging rate through optimization techniques, these proposed mechanisms capture the dynamics of networks’ and users’ behaviors and adapt to their changes. Numerical results show significant improvements of the system utilization and users’ satisfaction.