Variability of user performance in cellular DS-CDMA-long versus short spreading sequences

The uplink performance in a cellular direct-sequence code-division multiple-access system using long and short spreading sequences is compared in terms of the distribution of the bit-error probability. Three different receiver types are considered: conventional; MMSE; and interference cancellation, both with and without forward-error correction. The short code system has a slightly higher performance variability among the user population than the corresponding long code system, which requires attention when designing a short code system. Code hopping as a technique to mitigate this is investigated.