The Network Slicing (NS) technology, recognized as one of the key enabling features of Fifth Generation (5G) wireless systems, provides very flexible ways to efficiently accommodate common physical infrastructures, e.g., Base Station (BS), multiple logical networks referred to as Network Slice Instances (NSIs). To ensure the required Quality of Service (QoS) levels, the NS-technology relies on classical Resource Reservation (RR) or Service Prioritization schemes. Thus, the current paper aims to propose a Preemption-based Prioritization (PP) scheme “merging” the classical RR and Service Prioritization schemes. The proposed PP-scheme efficiency is evaluated or estimated given a Queueing system (QS) model analyzing the operation of multiple NSIs with various requirements at common 5G BSs. As a key result, the proposed PP-scheme can provide up to 100% gain in terms of blocking probabilities of arriving requests with respect to some baseline.

Fifth-generation (5G) New Radio (NR) systems are expected to support multiple traffic classes including enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC), and massive machine-type communications (mMTC) at the same air interface. This functionality is assumed to be implemented by utilizing the network slicing concept. According to the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the efficient support of this feature requires statistical multiplexing and, at the same time, traffic isolation between slices. In this paper, we formulate and solve a mathematical model for a class of Radio Access Network (RAN) slicing algorithms that simultaneously include resource reservation and a priority-based service discipline allowing us to incur fine granularity in the service processes of different traffic aggregates. The system is based on a queueing model and allows parametrization by accounting for the specifics of wireless channel impairments. As metrics of interest, we utilize K-class session drop probability, K-class session pre-emption probability, and system resource utilization. To showcase the capabilities of the model, we also compare performance guarantees provided for URLLC, eMBB, and mMTC traffic when multiplexed over the same NR radio interface. Our results demonstrate that the performance trade-off is dictated by the offered traffic load of the highest priority sessions: (i) when it is small, mixed reservation/priority scheme outperforms the full reservation mechanism; (ii) for overloaded conditions, full reservations provides better traffic isolation. The mixed strategy is beneficial to traffic aggregates with short-lived lightweight sessions, such as URLLC and mMTC, while the reservation only scheme works better for elastic eMBB traffic. The most important feature is that the mixed strategy allows resource utilization to be improved up to 95%, which is 10–15% higher compared to the reservation-only scheme while still providing isolation between traffic types.

According to the latest data from the leading participants in the telecommunications market, such as Cisco Systems, the volume of traffic generated in modern wireless networks is increasing exponentially. The rapid growth of traffic, which appears in the context of providing a wide range of high-quality multimedia services to mobile network users leads to a lack of available radio spectrum. This is becoming a major problem in the development of modern wireless technologies. Mobile network operators offer various methods for solving this problem, such as the frameworks LAA and LSA, which allow more efficient use of available resources in the frequency band. In addition, as part of the implementation of various technologies to provide users services with the required level of QoS, mechanisms for managing radio resources, such as reducing the downlink power and interrupting users services can be applied. Models implementing such mechanisms can be described in the form of a queuing system with unreliable servers. This paper analyzes the performance metrics of a possible scheme for accessing the radio resources of a wireless network implemented through a mechanism for reducing the downlink power and interrupting user service. The mechanism itself is described in the form of a queuing system with unreliable servers, that are affected by a random environment.