Delay Threshold-Based Priority Queueing Packet

Scheduling for Integrated Services in Mobile Broadband

Wireless Access System

Dong Hoi Kim1 and Chung Gu Kang2

1 The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute,
Gajeong-dong, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, Korea
donghk@etri.re.kr
2 The college of Information and Communications,

Korea University, Seoul, Korea

ccgkang@korea.ac.kr

Abstract. In this paper, we present an opportunistic packet scheduling algo-

rithm to support both real-time (RT) and non-real-time (NRT) services in mo-
bile broadband wireless access (MBWA) systems. Our design objective is to
determine the maximum number of RT and NRT users with respect to the over-
all service revenue while satisfying individual QoS requirements, e.g., the
maximum allowable packet loss rate for RT traffic and the minimum reserved
bit rate for NRT traffic. As opposed to a typical priority queueing-based sched-
uling scheme in which RT users are always served a prior to NRT users while
NRT users are served with the remaining resource, the proposed scheme takes
the urgency of the RT service into account only when their head-of-line (HOL)
packet delays exceed a given threshold. The delay threshold-based scheduling
scheme allows for leveraging the multi-user diversity of NRT users, eventually
maximizing the overall system throughput. By evaluating the proposed ap-
proach in an orthogonal frequency division multiple access/frequency division
duplex (OFDMA/FDD)-based mobile access system, it is shown that the overall
system throughput can be significantly improved in terms of the number of us-
ers or total service revenue.

1 Introduction
In recent years, the opportunistic packet scheduling algorithms have been the increas-
ing interests for supporting various types of data services in the emerging mobile
broadband wireless access (MBWA) systems. In particular, OFDMA is considered as
one of the most spectrally-efficient multiple access alternatives for these systems, as it
fully leverages the multi-user diversity along with the frequency diversity inherent to
the OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) scheme. As a transmission
data rate varies with a location-dependent channel condition, especially under the
cellular structure with an aggressive frequency reuse, most of the packet scheduling
algorithms considered in these systems deal with the non-real-time (NRT) services.
One particular example is the proportional fairness (PF) packet scheduling algorithm
[1]. Furthermore, there exist various types of modification to PF algorithm so as to

L.T. Yang et al. (Eds.): HPCC 2005, LNCS 3726, pp. 305 – 314, 2005.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005
306 D.H. Kim and C.G. Kang

improve the data throughput [2]. As the RT service must be also supported in these
systems, packet scheduling algorithms for the RT service class are independently
developed, e.g., EXP scheme [3].
In actual system to support both RT and NRT services, two different approaches
can be used. One is the fixed-priority approach, which always prioritizes the RT ser-
vice class over the NRT service class. In other words, NRT traffic is served with the
resources remaining after all of the RT traffic has been served. This is essentially a
form of priority queuing (PQ) scheme [4]. The other approach is to use two different
types of priority metrics, each specified for an individual service class. The priority
metric for each class is selected to take their relative urgency, throughput, and fairness
among both RT and NRT service class users into account under the varying channel
conditions. Once the priority metrics have been evaluated individually, a user with the
highest metric value is served first, regardless of its service class. The EXP/PF
scheme in [5] is an example of this particular approach.
In this paper, we propose a different type of packet scheduling scheme, called a de-
lay threshold-based priority queueing (DTPQ) scheme, which is designed to support
both RT and NRT services in an integrated manner. The maximum allowable packet
loss rate and the minimum reserved bit rate are the QoS parameters under considera-
tion for RT and NRT traffic, respectively. The design objective of the proposed
packet scheduler is to determine the optimal number of RT and NRT users with re-
spect to the overall service revenue while satisfying individual QoS requirements. As
opposed to a typical priority queueing-based scheduling scheme in which RT users
are always served a prior to NRT users while NRT users are served with the remain-
ing resource, the proposed scheme takes the urgency of the RT service into account
only when their head-of-line (HOL) packet delays exceed a given threshold. In other
words, as long as the maximum allowable packet loss rate requirement is satisfied, RT
users can be delayed so as to maximize the throughput for the NRT users, leveraging
the multi-user diversity of NRT users.
By evaluating the proposed approach in an orthogonal frequency division multiple
access/frequency division duplex (OFDMA/FDD)-based mobile access system, it is
shown that the system capacity can be significantly improved in terms of the number
of RT and NRT service users.

2 Problem Formulation
2.1 Motivation

For RT service class, there is a pre-specified packet loss rate requirement, which is
governed by the maximum allowable delay, Wmax . A HOL packet will be dropped if
its delay exceeds Wmax , the corresponding packet will be dropped and thus, the corre-
sponding QoS requirement may not be met. In other words, as the HOL packet delay
for RT service class increases towards Wmax , a higher priority must be given to the
RT service class users. However, if this prioritization is performed too early, then
QoS requirement of the RT service class will be over-enforced,, which subsequently
hurts the performance of NRT service class.
 Delay Threshold-Based Priority Queueing Packet Scheduling for Integrated Services 307

Maximum delay requirement (= Wmax

i
)

HOL
packet Measured delay (= Wi (t ))
delay

i
kWmax

Time

Fig. 1. Relative HOL packet delay variation subject to delay requirement

In the proposed scheme, we introduce a HOL delay threshold as a design parame-

ter, which determines which service class to be served first. As shown in Fig. 1, the
delay threshold is given by kWmax , where k is a control parameter that determines the
priority of one service class over the other. Note that kWmax must be less than Wmax ,
i.e., 0 ≤ k ≤ 1 . As long as HOL packet delays of all RT service class users do not
exceed kWmax , then NRT service class users are scheduled. Otherwise, RT service
class users are scheduled. Meanwhile, an appropriate priority metric for opportunistic
scheduling is selected for each service class. In other words, all users in the same
service class are served on the basis of their own priority metrics. In the current dis-
cussion, we consider exponential (EXP) scheduling algorithm [3] for RT service class
and proportional fairness (PF) scheduling algorithm [1] for NRT service class.
The proposed approach consists of two different steps, one which deals with priori-
tizing the two different service classes and the other that prioritizes the users in the
same service class. Here, the control parameter k must be determined to maximize a
given objective function. Given the parameter k, for example, the total numbers of RT
and NRT users that satisfy the target outage probability are denoted by N RT (k ) and
N NRT (k ) , respectively. Note that the optimal value of parameter k changes according
to the operator’s policy, e.g., depending on the service charges for the different traffic
types subject to the prescribed QoS requirement. Note that delay requirement for the
RT service class users is immediately violated with k = 1 , in which case none of the
RT service class users can be served unless there remains the resource after serving
all RT service class users.

2.2 QoS and Performance Measures

The performance of RT service class is specified by the packet loss rate, which is
defined as a ratio of the number of dropped packets to the total number of packets.
Packet is dropped when the packet delay exceeds a specified delay, Wmax . Let U RT
and U NRT denote a set of users belonging to RT service and NRT service classes,
respectively. If the numbers of dropped and transmitted packets during a given
308 D.H. Kim and C.G. Kang

simulation interval for user i are denoted by Ni( d ) and Ni( s ) , respectively, the packet
loss rate at time t for user i is given as follows:
Ni( d ) (t )
PLRi (t ) = , i ∈ U RT . (1)
N i( d ) (t ) + Ni( s ) (t )

For each RT service class user, QoS requirement is imposed by the target packet
loss rate, denoted by PLRmax , i.e., PLRi (t ) ≤ PLRmax , ∀i ∈ U RT . Furthermore, the
system outage probability can be specified in terms of the number of RT users that do
not meet the packet loss rate requirement. More specifically, the system outage prob-
ability for the RT service class users at time t is defined as follows:
Num( PLRi (t ) > PLRmax )
( L)
Pout = (2)
Ntotal

where Num( PLRi (t ) > PLRmax ) denotes the number of users whose packet loss rate
exceeds the target packet loss rate while Ntotal denotes the total number of RT service
class users.
Meanwhile, the performance of NRT service class is specified by the average bit
rate to be supported during a packet call. Assuming that there are K packet calls for a
user session i, the average bit rate is defined as follows [6]:

1 K
Bi( k )
Ri = ∑t  i ∈ U NRT . (3)
d − ta
(k ) (k )
K k =1

where Bi ( k ) denotes the number of bits transmitted during k-th packet call of user
session i, while ta( k ) and td( k ) denote the arrival and departure times of the k-th packet,
respectively. For each NRT service class user, QoS requirement is imposed by the
target minimum bit rate, denoted by Rmin , i.e., Ri ≤ Rmin , ∀i ∈ U RT . Furthermore,
the system outage probability can be specified in terms of the number of NRT users
that do not meet the minimum bit rate requirement. More specifically, the system
outage probability for the NRT service class users is defined as follows:
Num( Ri < Rmin )
( R)
Pout = . (4)
N total

where Num( Ri < Rmin ) denotes the number of users whose minimum bit rate does not
exceed the target minimum bit rate.

2.3 Problem Formulation

In general, the objective of the proposed DTPQ scheduling scheme intends to maxi-
mize the number of users in the system, increasing the total service revenue. In order
to take into account the operator’s policy on charging for RT and NRT service class
users, we consider the weighting factors, ω RT and ω NRT , which represent per-user
 Delay Threshold-Based Priority Queueing Packet Scheduling for Integrated Services 309

revenue for RT and NRT service, respectively. Then, overall revenue is given as
follows:
f (k ) = ω RT N RT (k ) + ω NRT N NRT (k ) . (5)
The control parameter k must be determined to maximize the objective function (5),
while satisfying the individual QoS requirements in terms of their outage perform-
ances. Now, our design problem can be formally stated as follows:
Max {ω RT N EXP (k ) + ω NRT N PF (k )} . (6)
0≤ k ≤1

subject to

⎪⎧ Pout = Pr{PLRi (t ) > PLRmax } ≤ P%out , ∀i ∈ U RT

(L) (L)

⎨ (R)
⎪⎩ Pout = Pr{Ri < Rmin } ≤ P%out , ∀i ∈ U NRT
(R)

where P%out
( L)
and P%out
( R)
are the maximum allowable outage probabilities for RT and
NRT users, respectively.

3 Performance Analysis

3.1 System Model

In this paper, we consider a downlink of the OFDMA/FDD system with 1,536 subcar-
riers derived from a total bandwidth of 20 MHz. Each frame is composed of 20 slots,
each having a fixed length of 1 ms, i.e., a frame length of 20 ms. In each slot, all sub-
carriers are shared among all cells for a frequency reuse factor of 1. In each cell, a
subset of subcarriers, defined as a subchannel, is used as the basic resource allocation
unit. More specifically, we have a total of 12 subchannels in the current system, i.e.,
128 subcarriers in each subchannel. Furthermore, we do not take the control sections
and other overhead into account, but simply assume that all subcarriers are used for
data transmission. All of the subcarriers in each subchannel are selected by following
a pre-specified random pattern and thus, SIR for each user is measured by taking the
average of all subcarriers assingned. The modulation order and coding rate is deter-
mined by the instantaneous SIR, following the prescribed AMC table, which specifies
the minimum SIR required to meet a target frame error rate, e.g., 0.1 %.

Table 1. AMC Mode

Required SIR (dB) Modulation Scheme Coding Rate

1.5 BPSK 1/2
4.0 QPSK 1/2
7.0 QPSK 3/4
11.0 16 QAM 6/16
13.5 16 QAM 3/4
18.5 64 QAM 3/4
310 D.H. Kim and C.G. Kang

Table 2. System Parameters

Parameter Value
System OFDMA/FDD
Downlink Channel BW 20 MHz
OFDM symbol duration 100 µ s
Total number of subcarriers 1,536
Number of subcarriers per subchannel 128
Number of subchannels 12
Frame period 20 ms
Slot period 1 ms

In our simulation, we follow the system specification described in [7], including

the AMC table as shown in Table 1. All other system parameters are summarized in
Table 2. Video streaming traffic and world wide web (WWW) traffic are considered
as typical applications for RT and NRT services in the current application. In the
sequel, their traffic models are detailed.

Near Real-Time Video Streaming Traffic Model

Video streaming consists of a sequence of frames which are emitted regularly with
interval T. Every frame in the streaming is identically composed of a certain same
number of slices, and each slice corresponds to a single packet. Note that the number
of slices in each frame is the same, while those slices belonging to the same frame can
have different sizes. In this paper, we consider the video streaming traffic with a rate
of 32 kbps, a frame interval of 100 ms (T = 100), and eight slices per frame. The
distribution parameters of the slice sizes and inter-arrival time are as shown in Table 3
[8][9], where α denotes the shape of the PDF for the packet size. Meanwhile, the
minimum and maximum allowed packet sizes are denoted by β and γ .

NRT WWW Traffic Model

An NRT traffic model of world wide web (WWW) services, given in terms of their
sessions, is defined by the time intervals of the WWW browsing usage. Each session
consists of a number of packet calls, each of which also comprises a burst of packets.
In other words, each packet call is made up of a burst of packets, which is a key char-
acteristic of NRT traffic source. The specific parameters for WWW surfing, uncon-
strained delay data, 144 kbps traffic model are given in Table 4 [9], where the average
packet size is denoted by µ L .

Table 3. Video streaming traffic model parameters [8]

Category Distribution Parameters

Slice size Truncated Pareto α =1.2, β = 20 byte, γ =125 byte
Slice inter-arrival time Truncated Pareto α =1.2, β =2.5 ms, γ =12.5 ms
 Delay Threshold-Based Priority Queueing Packet Scheduling for Integrated Services 311

Table 4. WWW-application traffic model parameters

Information types Distribution Parameters

Number of packet calls per session Geometric 5
Reading time between packets calls Geometric 412 sec
Number of packets within a packet call Geometric 25
Inter-arrival time between packets
Geometric 27.7 ms
(within a packet call)
α =1.1,
Truncated β =81.5 bytes,
Packet size γ =66666 bytes,
Pareto
µ L =480 bytes

3.2 Simulation Parameters

In our simulation, we consider a hexagonal cell layout with a reference cell and 6
surrounding cells in the first tier, each with an omni-directional antenna. Even though
a larger number of tiers could be taken into account for improving the accuracy of the
assessment of interference from other cells, it is not essential as the current analysis is
merely focused on studying the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. The radius of
each cell is fixed at 1 km. Mobile stations are uniformly distributed throughout each
cell and move with velocities that are uniformly distributed in the range of [3,100]
km/h in a random direction. The large-scale path loss [10] and log-normal shadowing
[11] are taken into account for the simulation. Our path loss model and log-normal
shadowing follow a typical outdoor mobile communication propagation model, which
is often found in the 3GPP standardization context. More specifically, we use the
following path loss model:
L = 128.1 + 37.6 log10 R  (9)

where R is the distance from a base station (BS) to the mobile station in km. We
assume that the BS has perfect channel knowledge. The transmission power of the BS
is set to 12 W, which is equally distributed among all 12 subchannels, assuming that
all cells are fully loaded, meaning that all subcarriers are fully allocated in each cell.
We assume that there are 12 subchannels available for each time slot. Assuming that
all subcarriers in each subchannel are randomly distributed in the frequency domain,
it is acceptable that the same power is assigned to each subchannel in the average
sense. More specifically, we assume that each subchannel is assigned a power level of
1 W, i.e., a total power of 12 W is allocated to the BS, which is equally distributed
over all subchannels.
Only the payload of each packet is considered, e.g., excluding the additional bits
for the header. The maximum delay allowed for RT video streaming traffic is 200
msec. For the WWW surfing unconstrained delay data (UDD) 144 kbps traffic model,
the minimum required data rate is set to 50 kbps. In order to overload the system for a
short duration, the reading time between packet calls is set to 2.6592 seconds. All
results are obtained during the simulation time of 100 sec. Meanwhile, the maximum
312 D.H. Kim and C.G. Kang

allowable outage probability is set to P%out

( L)
= P%out
(R)
= 0.1 for all service classes, i.e.,
Pr {Pr {Wi (t ) > 0.2 sec} > 0.01} < 0.1 for RT video streaming service and

{
Pr Ri < 50 kbps < 0.1 for NRT WWW service. }
3.3 Simulation Results and Discussion

Fig. 2 shows that the number of users satisfying the outage probability of 0.1 varies
with the parameter, k . Without any loss of generality, we only consider discrete val-
ues of k , i.e., k =0, 0.1, 0.2, …., 0.9, 1.0. When ω RT : ω NRT = 1:1 , we find that the
total number of RT and NRT users supported by DTPQ scheme is maximized at
k = 1 . When ω RT : ω NRT = 5 :1 , however, the objective function is maximized at
k = 0.3 . It implies that the optimum delay threshold with respect to total revenue
exists for the different per-user revenue.
In Fig. 3, outage performance of PQ and DTPQ schemes are compared for
ω RT : ω NRT = 5 :1 . Note that DTPQ scheme with k = 0 is equivalent to the conven-
tional PQ scheme. As expected, the outage performance of NRT service class varies
with k while it is not the case for RT service class. In fact, a performance of NRT
service users is significantly improved with the proposed DTPQ scheme while that of
RT service is not compromised. We note that the maximum number of NRT users that
can be admitted is increased almost as much as 30% by DTPQ scheme with k = 0.3 .
It confirms the optimal trade-off for opportunistic packet scheduling between RT and
NRT service classes subject to their individual QoS requirement.

2500

2000 Number of RT users by DTPQ

when wRT : wNRT = 1 : 1
the outage probability of 0.1

Number of NRT users by DTPQ

Total revenue satisfying

when wRT : wNRT = 1 : 1

1500 Sum of RT and NRT users by DTPQ
when wRT : wNRT = 1 : 1
Sum of RT and NRT users by DTPQ
when wRT : wNRT = 5 : 1
1000

500

0
0 1

Parameter k

Fig. 2. Total revenue satisfying P%out

(L)
= P%out
( R)
= 0.1 as a function of the design parameter k
 Delay Threshold-Based Priority Queueing Packet Scheduling for Integrated Services 313

0.20

RT service when k=0

NRT service when k=0
RT service when k=0.1
0.15 NRT service when k=0.1
RT service when k=0.2
Outage probability

NRT service when k=0.2

RT service when k=0.13
NRT service when k=0.3
0.10

0.05

0.00
100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450

Number of users

Fig. 3. Outage probability performance: PQ vs. DTPQ schemes ( ω RT : ω NRT = 5 :1 )

4 Conclusion
In this paper, we proposed a novel priority queueing packet scheduling scheme to
maximize total throughput of mobile broadband wireless access system, in which both
RT and NRT service classes are supported at the same time. It is based on the delay
threshold that trades off the packet loss rate performance of RT service class with
average data throughput of NRT service class with the fixed data rate. The proposed
delay threshold-based priority queueing (DTPQ) scheme provides a means of maxi-
mizing the multi-user diversity gain for NRT service class while satisfying QoS re-
quirement for RT service class. Our simulation results have demonstrated that the
number of NRT service users can be increased almost as much as 30% by DTPQ
scheme. Furthermore, it has been shown that the delay threshold is a critical design
parameter as it must be varies with the traffic load and channel condition. In our fu-
ture work, a type of adaptive control scheme must be addressed to determine the dy-
namic optimal delay threshold that varies with the network condition.

References
1. A. Jalali, R. Padovani, and R. Pankaj, “Data Throughput of CDMA-HDR a High Effi-
ciency-High Data Rate Personal Comm. Wireless System,” VTC 2000-Spring, vol. 3,
2000, pp. 1854 -1858.
314 D.H. Kim and C.G. Kang

2. Dong Hoi Kim, Byung Han Rye, and Chung Gu Kang, “Packet Scheduling Algorithm
Considering a Minimum Bit Rate for Non-realtime Traffic in an OFDMA/FDD-Based
Mobile Internet Access System,” ETRI Journal, Vol. 26, Number 1, pp. 48~52, February
2004.
3. S. Shakkottai and A. Stolyar, “A study of Scheduling Algorithms for a Mixture of Real-
and Non-Real-Time Data in HDR,” 17th International Teletraffic Congress (ITC-17), Sept.
2001.
4. Geoff Huston, Internet Performance Survival Guide: QoS Strategies for Multiservice Net-
works, Wiley Computer Publishing, 2000.
5. Jong Hun Rhee and Dong Ku Kim, “Scheduling of Real/Non-real Time Services in an
AMC/TDM System: EXP/PF Algorithm,” LNCS, Vol. 2524/2003, pp. 506~514, August
2003.
6. 3GPP, “Feasibility Study for OFDM for UTRAN enhancement (Release 6),” 3G TR25.892
V0.2.0, March, 2003.
7. Qingwen Liu, Shengli Zhou, and Georgios B. Giannakis, “Cross-Layer Combining of
Adaptive Modulation and Coding with Truncated ARQ over Wireless Links,” IEEE Trans-
actions on wireless communications, vol. 3, no. 5, pp. 1746~1755, Sept. 2004.
8. Draft 802.20 Permanent Document, Traffic Models for IEEE 802.20 MBWA System
Simulations, July 8, 2003.
9. J. P. Castro, The UMTS Network and Radio Access Technology, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,
New York, NY, 2001.
10. 3GPP, “Physical Layer Aspects of UTRA High Speed Downlink Packet Access (Release
2000),” 3G TR25.848 V4.0.0, March, 2001.
11. Recommendation ITR-R M.1225, “Guidelines for evaluation of radio transmission tech-
nologies for IMT-2000,” 1997.