SINR-Aware Adaptive Offloading and Resource Allocation in Shared-Spectrum Integrated Terrestrial and Non-Terrestrial Networks
Sharing the sub-6~GHz spectrum between terrestrial networks and low Earth orbit satellites introduces cross-tier interference in both directions, as terrestrial transmissions can degrade satellite-link reception, while satellite transmissions can impair the performance of terrestrial links. Conventional reference signal received power (RSRP)-based offloading, designed for separate frequency bands, does not account for this cross-tier interference. We study offloading and resource allocation in an integrated terrestrial and non-terrestrial network through a two-timescale framework in which signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR)-aware adaptive traffic offloading (SAATO) updates user associations from filtered SINR and load-aware expected throughput, switching a user only across a hysteresis band, while joint cross-tier fractional programming (Joint-FP) optimizes resource allocation for the resulting associations. Under an equal-share resource allocation model, the resulting decision metric approximates the change in proportional-fair utility with an error that decays with load. We prove that joint allocation under the sum-rate utility is nondeterministic polynomial-time (NP)-hard and that the utility sequence accepted by Joint-FP is non-decreasing and convergent. At full spectral overlap, RSRP-based offloading leaves 44\% of user samples below 0.5~Mbps (outage), whereas SAATO with Joint-FP, given instantaneous channel knowledge, leaves none and increases geometric-mean throughput by 8\% and 2\% under half and full spectral overlap, respectively, relative to power control without offloading. It also limits tier switching to at most 0.05 switches per user per minute.