1 Fairness in Wireless Networks - Issues, Measures and Challenges Huaizhou SHI, R. Venkatesha Prasad, Ertan Onur, I.G.M.M. Niemegeers WMC, Telecommunications, Delft University of Technology fh.z.shi, R.R.VenkateshaPrasad, E.Onur,
[email protected] Abstract—Fairness is an important and interdisciplinary topic employed in many fields. This article discusses fairness issues in wireless networks. First, we address various issues in the study on fairness. In general, we formulate the issues in fairness research through the three core questions. Finding answers them leads us to various nuances of fairness studies. Existing fairness models are summarized and compared. We also look into the major fairness research domains in wireless networks. Relationship between fairness, utility and resource allocation are also discussed. At the end of this article, we provide properties of fairness and an example fairness management process. We also state some challenges that point to further work on fairness in wireless networks. Indeed research on fairness is entangled with various other aspects such as performance, utility, optimization and throughput at the network as well as individual (or node) level. While consolidating various contributions in the literature, this article tries to explain the nuances of all these aspects clearly Fig. 1. A simple illustration of a wireless network consisting of five wireless in the domain of wireless networking. nodes and six wireless links where the objective of the nodes is to access the Index Terms—Fairness, Utility, Resource allocation, Wireless Internet services over Node C which acts as the gateway. networks, Jain’s index, Entropy, Max-min, Min-max, Propor- tional fairness QoS requirements of the nodes should be fairly satisfied, Energy consumption should be the same when the load is I.