Cellular capacity

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the capacity of cellular systems configured to use orthogonal (time division or frequency division) or nonorthogonal (code division) multiple access methods. The analysis proceeds on the basis of information theory, with minimum attention to the practical issues of propagation and reception in the UHF bands. Our conclusion is that the maximum Shannon capacities of orthogonal and nonorthogonal cellular systems are within 25% of one another, with TDMA/FDMA having a slight advantage.