Balancing CRRM Performance Goals with Load Shared Packet Services

Beyond 3G and 4G wireless promise 'always best connected' as well as new high-rate wireless networks. Since costly earlier generation networks are still useful, load sharing between integrated wireless networks becomes feasible. Studies have shown that load shared networks using common radio resource management (CRRM) techniques are beneficial - with circuit-oriented sessions. Since wireless networks will increasingly carry queued packet-switched data, it is important to learn how packet data performs in a load shared environment - alone and with speech. Packet data increases complexity however, since packets should be discarded if a substantial delay occurs. This simulation study compares different overflow and queuing algorithms, as the loading of two networks vary. The simulation is validated using a multidimensional Markov Chain model.