The Case for Boosting Mobile Application QoE via Smart Band Switching in 5G/xG Networks

Abstract

5G and future 6G networks support diverse combinations of access technologies, architectures, and radio frequencies, with each combination termed as a “band” henceforth. Through comprehensive measurements in 12 cities across 5 countries, we experimentally show that operator-configured default bands are often highly suboptimal, particularly under mobility. We then propose smart band switching, where a UE’s band can be dynamically changed to improve the network performance and boost the application QoE. We discuss challenges, opportunities, and design choices for building a practical smart band switching system. We further develop preliminary UE-side band-switching logic on commodity smartphones, and evaluate it on commercial 5G networks.

Publication
International Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications
Shuowei Jin
Shuowei Jin
PhD Candidate at University of Michigan CSE

My research interests include efficient LLM inference algorithms/systems, machine learning systems, and mobile systems.