We consider the optimal opportunistic scheduling problem for downlink data traffic in a
wireless cell with time-varying channels. The scheduler itself operates in a very fast
timescale of milliseconds, but the objective function is related to minimizing the holding costs
in a much longer timescale, at the so-called flow level. The Whittle index approach is a
powerful tool in this context, since it renders the flow level optimization problem with
heterogeneous users tractable. Until now, this approach has been applied to the …

We consider the optimal opportunistic scheduling problem for downlink data traffic in a
wireless cell with time-varying channels. The scheduler itself operates at a very fast time
scale of milliseconds, but the objective function is related to minimizing the holding costs at a
much longer time scale, at the so-called flow level. The Whittle index approach is a powerful
tool in this context, since it renders the flow-level optimization problem with heterogeneous
users tractable. Until now, this approach has been applied to the opportunistic scheduling …