Fairness in wireless microcellular networks

Abstract

In the design of cellular and microcellular telecommunication networks, it is common to consider service to subscribers in specific regions by more than a single base station. Although the service overlap provides certain advantages, such as performance improvement achieved in dynamic channel assignment, it results in a large variance in the quality of service across the cells. In this paper, we introduce channel restriction to achieve fairness in the network quality of service. We develop analytical and simulation models for network performance and examine the advantages gained in increased system throughput and reduced probability of handover failure. The numerical results indicate that restricting the number of available channels to users in the overlap region results in considerable improvement in the carried traffic and mean probability of blocking. Finally, we discuss the possibility of substituting or scaling down the guard channels with channel restriction to achieve the desired effect of reduced forced termination.