A Virtualization Architecture For Mobile WiMAX Networks

Systems virtualization offers convenient means for sharing networking infrastructure while improving its utilization. This study addresses the challenges of virtualizing a commercial off-the-shelf 4G mobile WiMAX basestation. We highlight additions and modifications needed in the WiMAX network architecture for supporting multiple simultaneous virtual basestations on a single physical basestation. The most prominent features provided by the proposed virtual basestation framework include the capability to perform all frame switching at layer-2, and control mechanisms to provide isolation across slices needed to ensure experiment repeatability. By prototyping on a commercial WiMAX radio, this paper shows the usage of the virtual basestation system for housing mobile virtual network operators and testbeds alike. A use case is shown where the virtual basestation design is used to evaluate mobile handoff schemes. Another usage case is shown for optimizing a video delivery on the edge. The video delivery use case is used to show performance improvements of up to 5dB in the PSNR. Evaluation of prototype shows a significant improvement in the slice isolation, with aggregate throughput improvements of up to 192% achievable through fair resource allocation.