Maximizing Network Throughput Using SD-RAN.

Software-Defined Radio Access Networks (SD-RANs), introduced in 5G, represent a paradigm shift in the process of cellular network resource allocation. The decoupling of the control from the data plane, and associating the former with a controller away from Base Stations (BSs), has enabled an increased flexibility in allocating network resources which would lead to performance improvements. However, so far, it is not yet clear to what extent this amelioration ranges in terms of the maximum throughput that can be achieved. Therefore, in this paper, we consider analytically the problem of maximizing the overall network throughput in an SD-RAN environment, by deriving the policy which accomplishes that along with the total throughput, of interest to cellular operators. We assess the performance with real user traces. Results show that the introduction of SD-RAN improves performance by at least 20%.