Blockchain enables fair resource sharing among O-RAN operators
Blockchain-based Proportional Fair Scheduling for Multi-Operator O-RAN
Networking and Internet Architecture
Summary
Sharing wireless network resources fairly among different operators is hard because they don’t fully trust each other. The authors propose a method that uses blockchain technology to schedule resource use reliably and fairly across multiple operators in an Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN). They created smart contracts to automate trustworthy coordination and payments, and developed math models to predict how well the system performs. Their results show that combining resources this way improves user data speeds as more operators and users participate.
What this means in practice
- •For network schedulers: Coordinate fair and verifiable resource scheduling across multiple mobile operators using blockchain-enabled smart contracts.
- •For telecom infrastructure providers: Implement trustable inter-operator resource pooling in open radio access networks to improve overall user throughput.
Authors
Kun Huang, Xintong Ling, Meining Wu, Jiaheng Wang, Zhi Ding, Xiqi Gao
Abstract
The openness and disaggregation of Open radio access network (O-RAN) facilitate resource sharing and coordination across networks, creating new demands for efficient and trustworthy cross-operator scheduling. However, such scheduling is beyond the scope and capability of conventional proportional fair scheduling (PFS), which lacks mechanisms for establishing trust among independent operators. To fulfill this gap, we propose the blockchain-based proportional fair scheduling (BC-PFS) that enables trustworthy inter-network coordination and resource pooling across operators in O-RAN. Specifically, we design four core smart contracts including registration, status reporting, scheduling, and settlement contracts with corresponding Solidity implementations to ensure trustworthy on-chain execution. Theoretically, to evaluate the BC-PFS performance, we develop an analytical framework to derive the user average throughput via both probabilistic and ordinary differential equation (ODE) approaches, and provide a simplified closed-form solution. Based on the above performance assessment, we quantify the pooling effect in O-RAN achieved through trustworthy cross-operator collaboration via BC-PFS, and point out that this effect grows monotonically in both the numbers of operator networks and users. Simulations validate the theoretical analysis and show the performance of the BC-PFS in O-RAN.