Network slicing with spectrum sharing

Two techniques that have received widespread attention for future networks are network sharing and network slicing. In this chapter, the relationship between the two is explored and the commonality between them is explained. In the simplest case, the resource can be set up as fixed blocks of spectrum allocated to a specific network operator (network sharing) or a particular set of services (network slicing). However, this can be inefficient in terms of use of resource and to overcome that inefficiency the concept of dynamic allocation is introduced, although that does introduce the possibility of inter-cell interference between shares/slices. An extensive review of the literature in the area shows that such an approach will lead to significant benefits. Techniques to mitigate the interference are explained and it is shown that suitable control in the allocation of resources to users can lead to complete isolation between the slices, albeit at the expense of a small amount of the gain achieved through sharing. The effects of sharing spectrum or setting up slices in this way are demonstrated through example simulation results, although it is made clear that the example approach is used is just one way to achieve the mitigation required. In those example results the aim was to maximize the number of users who are allocated sufficient spectrum to achieve a capacity (in the Shannon sense) to meet their quality of service (QoS) requirements.