Investigation of Different Approaches for QoE-Oriented Scheduling in OFDMA Networks

QoE- and application-aware scheduling is a new paradigm for mobile communication networks. It aims at making better use of network resources with respect to the perceived quality of the users. To achieve this, it specifies an interaction between application and networking layers. Previous work has shown that such a resource management is possible by the weighting of applications and the definition of key quality indicators. However, quantification of the benefits and the impact on the application itself is hardly studied, since it requires precise modeling of both the data transmission in the mobile network as well as the application itself. In this paper the influence of different cross-layer scheduling heuristics on the application is examined for the air interface of LTE mobile networks. For this, not only the physical data transmission but also the application behavior is simulated in detail for Skype, YouTube, web browsing, and downloads. For each application quality indicators are defined that provide information on the current performance of the application. The investigated scheduling approaches take into account detailed application information of different levels like the application type, the current status of the application, or the ability of an application to adapt to the network situation.