Wireless resource sharing for multiple operators: Generalization, fairness, and the value of prediction

Sharing wireless channel resources among cellular network operators saves cost by efficiently utilizing hardware, sites, and spectrum. To achieve high spectral efficiency, resource sharing has to adapt to the instantaneous load and channel state. However, before operators accept such dynamic scheduling policies, a solid understanding of their reliability and performance is required. In this paper, we present a consistent theoretical framework for Multi-Operator Scheduling (MOS). This formulation allows to analyze sharing guarantees and spectral efficiency for a large number of parameters and covers various fixed and dynamic resource sharing policies as special cases. Extending our study to the complete knowledge of the future channel state allows us to study the complete performance region of MOS. The proofs, analysis and simulation results in this work provide a profound understanding of the fundamental tradeoff between sharing guarantees and performance in multi-operator sharing. This insight will enable reliable yet efficient infrastructure sharing in 5G Radio Access Networks.