A Resources Sharing Architecture for Heterogeneous Wireless Cellular Networks

The current static model used for allocating the spectrum of frequencies and the increasing demand for network resources imposed by modern applications and services may lead to a resources scarcity problem. Dealing with this problem demands optimized resources allocation. An alternative to provide this optimization is by allowing resources sharing among network operators. In this paper, an architecture is presented to encourage network operators to share their underutilized resources. A multilevel broker is proposed to control the resources sharing. This broker dynamically establishes a service level agreement that takes into account the quality of service requirements of resources renters and the cost of the resources. A performance evaluation shows that the implementation of the proposed architectures leads to better allocation of underutilized network resources.