Admission control scheme for soft handoff in DS-CDMA cellular systems supporting voice and stream-type data services

The soft handoff call requests of real-time services in third-generation (3G) direct-sequence code-division multiple access (DS-CDMA) and first- and second-generation cellular systems are more important than new call requests from the viewpoint of quality of service (QoS). Rejection of soft handoff requests causes forced termination of an ongoing real-time call, which is a severer problem than blocking of new call attempts. An admission control scheme that can guarantee a higher QoS for the soft handoff requests of real-time services in 3G DS-CDMA systems is proposed for delay-sensitive voice and delay-tolerant stream-type data services. The proposed scheme (P-Scheme) accommodates both voice and data services by utilizing the full bandwidth. However, voice soft handoff call requests are given priority over new voice call and stream-type data packet requests by suppressing interference from stream-type data services according to voice soft handoff requests, and by varying interference levels. Performance of the P-Scheme is evaluated using a Markovian model. Results are compared with a conventional reservation scheme (C-Scheme) that reserves resources exclusively for voice soft handoff requests. Numerical results show that system performance can be significantly improved using the proposed P-Scheme, compared with the conventional C-Scheme, when various types of service are supported in third-generation DS-CDMA systems.