On the Resource Allocation for Radio Access Network Slicing in Cellular IoT with Massive Traffic

The limited capacity of the random access channel (RACH) represents a challenge for adequate resource allocation in 5G radio access networks with network slicing. Furthermore, a fair division of scarce radio resources is required to simultaneously support many users with heterogeneous service requirements. In this work, we look at the problem of uplink radio resource allocation to slices on the radio interface of one cell in a non-stationary regime with mMTC, eMBB, and H2H traffic. We analyze four resource allocation policies for efficient random access to improve each slice's capacity in terms of successful access probability, the number of preamble transmissions, and access delay. Besides the number of available preambles in the RACH, we also consider the limitation of uplink grants in the radio access network.