The EMBRACE project addresses the topic of designing efficient solutions for 5G networks taking into account human behavior, uncertainty, and heterogeneity of networking resources.
The divergence of mobile data traffic and data revenue growth is increasing the pressure on mobile network operators to find effective and efficient ways to handle the data traffic that is swamping their networks. Associated to this pressure, the planning and operation of mobile networks have been traditionally based on oversimplified models of demand. Thus, there is the concern that such demand models are not able to resist to the natural changes on the user behaviors along the time. The associated consequence is the development of models that underestimate the opportunities for cost minimization or maximization of the user satisfaction. In addition, resource allocation models and services orchestration models designed for the planning and operation of mobile networks have also made optimistic assumptions about the resource availability and synergies between the services, e.g., by assuming that the resources and operational services have low uncertainty or a simple average can properly describe them. While this could be a reasonable approach in the traditional mobile networks, it is inappropriate in the context of 5G networks.
