Characterizing and Exploiting Temporal-Spatial Radio Resource Margins in Cellular Networks

Understanding the characteristics of spectrum utilization is essential in providing guidelines for resource allocation. In this paper, a detailed measurement analysis of spectrum efficiency is performed, with data collected from tens of thousands of base stations during fifteen months. We examine the characteristics of radio resource margins (RM) extensively, including its temporal skewness, diurnal patterns, weekly periodicity and spatial skewness. Main findings include that radio resources are not utilized efficiently both temporally and spatially, and radio RM and traffic load show strong weekly periodicity which is predictable. Inspired by the inefficient utilization of radio resources, we then devise an optimization scheme for dynamic radio resources reconfiguration and experimental results prove that it improves radio resources utilization efficiency and traffic load balance significantly.