Efficient channel borrowing strategy for real-time services in multimedia wireless networks

An efficient resource sharing strategy is proposed for multimedia wireless networks. We assume the channel resource in a wireless system is partitioned into two sets: one for voice calls and one for video calls. In the proposed channel borrowing strategy, voice calls can borrow channels from those pre-allocated to video calls temporarily when all voice channels are busy. A threshold type decision policy is designed such that the channel borrowing request will be granted only if the quality of service (QoS) requirement on video call blocking will not be violated during the duration of channel lending. An analytical model is constructed for evaluating the performance of the channel borrowing strategy in a simplified wireless system and is verified by computer simulations. We found that the proposed channel borrowing scheme can significantly reduce the voice call blocking probability while the increase in video call blocking probability is insignificant.