Forward-link capacity of a DS/CDMA system with mixed multirate sources

Some studies have been done on capacity of a code division multiple access (CDMA) system with mixed multirate sources. However, a vast majority of these studies have concentrated on the reverse-link. This trend comes from the fact that the capacity of a CDMA system is reverse-link limited. However, the forward-link can be a limiting link because emerging data services are likely to require higher data rates in the forward-link than in the reverse-link. In this paper, we analyze and simulate the forward-link capacity of a CDMA system with mixed multirate sources in a multipath fading channel. The outage probability of the forward-link is derived for a CDMA system with mixed multirate sources. By introducing a forward-link power factor, the forward-link Erlang capacity is obtained in a closed form. The forward-link capacity is analyzed in terms of the number of multipaths, the number of RAKE fingers in a mobile station, closed-loop power control, and impact of soft handoff. The results in this paper can be applied to overall system design of a CDMA system with multimedia services in future mobile communication systems.