Virtualization of the Wireless Medium: A Simulation-Based Study

This work considers virtualization of the wireless medium as a mean to share common network physical infrastructure by different Virtual Operators (VO) based on a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) virtualization technique. We have developed a Wireless Medium Virtualization Framework (WMVF) to analyze the performance of a variable number of VOs (with one or more types of traffic) accessing to the same wireless medium through the same wireless node in a coordinated way. Extensive simulations have been carried out to assess the impact of wireless medium virtualization based on relevant parameters such as the type of traffic, the number of VOs and the specific wireless technology. Delay, jitter and the utilization of the network are the metrics used in this paper to show the potential and limitations of wireless virtualization as a way to increase network usage. This work has been carried out partially inside the European Project 4WARD (FP7 Project reference: 216041).