Optimized Channel Utilization in Multi-carrier Wireless Mobile Networks

This paper considers the problem of maximizing throughput in a multi-carrier wireless network that employs predictive link adaptation. The contributions of this paper are the following. We explicitly consider the time-penalty induced by the transmission-mode changes in wireless networks. We study the trade-offs between the channel-state prediction quality and the throughput. We provide sound offline problem analysis, with optimal or approximate solutions to the extent possible. We consider online version of the wireless channel scheduling problem, and provide a lower bound and propose algorithms that guarantee competitive ratios. We also extend our algorithms to accommodate the model when the actual channel capacity is different from as predicted earlier. Our results show that a modest consumption of resources for channel prediction and link adaptation may result in a significant throughput improvement, with only marginal gains through further enhancement of the prediction quality.