Load Balancing Optimization in LTE/LTE-A Cellular Networks: A Review

During the past few decades wireless technology has seen a tremendous growth. The recent introduction of high-end mobile devices has further increased subscribers’ demand for high bandwidth. Current cellular systems require manual configuration and management of networks, which is now costly, time consuming and error prone due to exponentially increasing rate of mobile users and nodes. This leads to introduction of self organizing capabilities for network management with minimum human involvement. It is expected to permit higher end user Quality of Service (QoS) along with less operational and maintenance cost for telecom service providers. Self organized cellular networks incorporate a collection of functions for automatic configuration, optimization and maintenance of cellular networks. As mobile end users continue to use network resources while moving from a cell boundary to other, traffic load within a cell does not remain constant. Thus Load balancing as a part of self organized network solution, has become one of the most active and emerging fields of research in Cellular Network. It involves transfer of load from overloaded cells to the neighbouring cells with free resources for more balanced load distribution in order to maintain appropriate end-user experience and network performance. In this paper, review of various load balancing techniques currently used in mobile networks is presented, with special emphasis on techniques that are suitable for self optimization feature in future cellular networks.