A rate control algorithm for uplink high-speed packet data transmission in UMTS

High speed data services are becoming increasingly important in the uplink of wireless communication systems in order to support applications such as FTP, E-Mail, and gaming. In Release 6 of the universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) standard, an enhanced dedicated channel (E-DCH) has been introduced to provide high-speed packet data transmission in the uplink. This channel has the capability to provide high data rate services, both for best-effort and delay-sensitive applications, by introducing scheduling of users with fast resource allocation at the base station. In this paper, we propose an efficient uplink resource allocation algorithm comprising an overload control algorithm, a rate control algorithm, and a soft handoff (SHO) load control algorithm. System-level simulation results are presented that demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithm in a multi-cell, multi-user environment. Our simulation result shows that scheduling many users with similar rates leads to a desirable short rise-over-thermal (RoT) tail behavior and better user fairness than scheduling a few high data rate users. The performance analysis of the proposed SHO load control algorithm shows that the algorithm is effective in controlling the tradeoff between cell throughput and user fairness.