Radio resource management in roaming based multi-operator WCDMA networks

Infrastructure sharing and mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) are becoming more and more common in today´s mobile networks. In both cases, the subscribers of multiple operators connect to the same radio access network via, e.g., roaming based methods. Depending on how much each operator pays, they should then be guaranteed a certain capacity in the shared network. The paper discusses different solutions for how the radio resources in such a roaming based multi-operator WCDMA network may be allocated to the sharing operators. One particular method based on radio resource management (RRM) with nonpreemptive priority queuing in the admission control is presented in detail. The method seems to provide an attractive tradeoff between fairness and total system capacity.