An adaptive min-max fair bandwidth allocation scheme for cellular multimedia networks

Depending on the flexibility in controlling the transmission rate and the differences between on-line (real time) and off-line transmission modes, multimedia applications can potentially include a wide range of services, with the traditional stringent quality-of-service (QoS) requirement at the extreme to the highly adaptive ones that can tolerate or smartly adapt to the transient fluctuations in the QoS parameters. Keeping the cellular multimedia networks efficient with low call dropping and blocking rates and high bandwidth utilisation while maintaining a fair distribution of bandwidth by synergistically addressing the differences among these services remains a significant challenge. This paper addresses this issue by developing a novel min-max fairness scheme where bandwidth is distributed with equal share only after ensuring the minimum requirements. Besides borrowing in-use bandwidth through redistribution, this scheme also allows for using the reserved bandwidth for the offline services. Simulation results confirm the superiority of this scheme against the rate-based borrowing and the max-min fairness schemes, the two most recent works addressing similar issues. Copyright © 2005 AEIT.