The Effect of Additive and Multiplicative Scheduler Weight Adjustments on 5G Slicing Dynamics

We consider the problem of provisioning slices in 5G cellular networks and study two MAC scheduling methods for achieving slice rate and resource share constraints. The first uses an additive adjustment to the standard Proportional Fair scheduler weight and optimizes utility subject to the slice constraints. The second uses a multiplicative adjustment and achieves fairness between the users within a slice in addition to satisfying the slice constraints. We provide a comprehensive analysis of the tradeoffs between utility and fairness for the simple case of constant channel rates and use simulations to illustrate that similar effects hold for typical 3gpp channel models.