Co-Primary Multi-Operator Resource Sharing for Small Cell Networks

To tackle the challenge of providing higher data rates within limited\nspectral resources we consider the case of multiple operators sharing a common\npool of radio resources. Four algorithms are proposed to address co-primary\nmulti-operator radio resource sharing under heterogeneous traffic in both\ncentralized and distributed scenarios. The performance of these algorithms is\nassessed through extensive system-level simulations for two indoor small cell\nlayouts. It is assumed that the spectral allocations of the small cells are\northogonal to the macro network layer and thus, only the small cell traffic is\nmodeled. The main performance metrics are user throughput and the relative\namount of shared spectral resources. The numerical results demonstrate the\nimportance of coordination among co-primary operators for an optimal resource\nsharing. Also, maximizing the spectrum sharing percentage generally improves\nthe achievable throughput gains over non-sharing.\n