User data rate enhancement using heterogeneous LTE-802.11n offloading in urban area

Data offloading is a method to significantly improve network capacity. Offloading of data from macro-cells to pico-cells helps to ease capacity demand in hotspot areas where user distribution is dense and often demanding high bandwidths per user. This study uses a heterogeneous network using combined Long Term Evolution - WiFi IEEE 802.11n coverage to improve the capacity performance of the network. The heterogeneous network uses the offloading mechanism to enhance the per user capacity of the heterogeneous network. The user distribution is non-uniform and the 802.11n Access Points are positioned in areas with high user density. The offloading mechanism is based on a WiFi-First algorithm where users with sufficient Received Signal Strength to hop on to WiFi will be offloaded while the rest of the users will remain on the LTE network. A real digital map of Kuala Lumpur in the geospatial vector data format,. TAB is used for the simulations. The simulation results show that although around 50% of the users are offloaded to WiFi, the LTE network is only relieved 2.75% of the total capacity usage. This may seem small but due to offloading, nearly 100% increase in average capacity in experienced by the remaining LTE users from 0.05 Mbps to 0.09967 Mbps. The offloaded users also experience an increase of 0.876Mbps on average per user.