Trading CDPD availability and voice blocking probability in cellular networks

Cellular digital packet data (CDPD) offers mobile users access to a low-cost, ubiquitous, wireless data network. CDPD can be overlaid on existing AMPS analog cellular systems and share their infrastructure equipment on a noninterfering basis. Since CDPD utilizes the idle radio resources of AMPS, it is important to ensure that the normal AMPS activities are not affected by CDPD. Several timers and system parameters are defined in CDPD for this purpose. This article investigates how these timers and parameters affect the performance of AMPS/CDPD systems. Our study provides guidelines for the selection of input parameters to aid CDPD network planning. Specifically, we study the trade-off between CDPD availability and voice blocking probability. CDPD availability is defined as the proportion of time that the RF channels can be used to transmit CDPD data. We observe that selecting too large values for CDPD dwell time and the maximum number of CDPD channel streams will degrade the voice blocking probability without improving CDPD availability. On the other hand, selecting a too large value for the CDPD layoff time will degrade CDPD availability without improving voice blocking probability.