Deprioritization of Heavy Users In Wireless Networks

The explosive demand for wireless data services that followed the introduction of application phones continues to create significant challenges for mobile operators. Measurement campaigns indicate that the consumption of wireless network capacity follows a power-law where 20% of the users consume more than 80% of capacity. This creates unfairness amongst users in terms of the data volume that they are allowed to consume and more importantly, during congested periods of time it degrades the Quality of Experience (QoE) of all the users. As a response, many operators are attempting to control demand by gradually moving away from unlimited data plans with the introduction of volume caps and tiered charging. Many operators throttle the heavy users (HUs) after they have exceeded their cap, and consider doing the same during times of congestion. This paper evaluates the concept of deprioritization of heavy users in wireless networks for congestion management, the difference between deprioritization and throttling, and the enabling technologies to implement the feature in real-world networks.