Radio resource sharing among operators through MIMO based spatial multiplexing in 5G systems

Network sharing is one of the solutions for mobile operators to improve spectral efficiency and enhance coverage with smaller operational and investment costs. In this work, we propose a novel solution based on the multi-user MIMO approach for the network sharing among multiple operators. We use multiple antennas for spatial multiplexing of multiple operators on the smallest possible radio resource element. We consider three different service level agreements between the shared operators and the service provider. These agreements differ with respect to the pre-defined system utility optimization. The utilities we consider are the achievement of fairness among operators and the optimization of system spectral efficiency. We also propose new algorithms for the achievement of these utilities. The simulation results show that our algorithms perfectly achieve the service level agreements which is one of the key objectives in a shared network scenario. For the spectral efficiency we show that the resource fairness algorithm outperforms the performance results of the rate fairness algorithm.