Satisfaction-based Dynamic Bandwidth Reallocation for multipath mobile data offloading

Mobile data offloading is a key solution to mitigate heavy traffic load through cellular networks to the WiFi networks. To motivate the mobile users to transmit data over the cellular/WiFi networks under the control of the operator smartly, many incentive pricing frameworks have been proposed with the execution of dynamic bandwidth reallocation schemes to improve network efficiency. In this paper, a Satisfaction-based Dynamic Bandwidth Reallocation (SDBR) scheme is proposed to improve user satisfaction in term of the blocking probability and the user payment in data offloading environments. In SDBR, the operator can efficiently reallocate the bandwidth to accommodate more potential users; the overall operator revenue therefore increases as well. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed SDBR scheme, we first assess the blocking probability with and without serving users having WiFi connections and discuss the benefits of the dynamic bandwidth allocation. Then, we elaborate a satisfaction-based pricing scheme for data downloading to motivate both mobile operator and users to work with SDBR, which brings the increment of operator overall revenue and reduction of individual user payment. Finally, simulation results show that our proposed SDBR scheme outperforms the four existing bandwidth allocation schemes in both time-based and volume-based data transmission.