Analysis of performance and possible trends of CDMA cellular systems

The paper addresses the spectrum efficiency issue of cellular CDMA, and system capacity, in particular assuming the IS-95 standard as a reference. System capacity is evaluated by means of a new analytical approach, and comparison with simulation results are shown. Several channel impairments are taken into account, including lognormal shadowing, Rayleigh fading, and imperfect power control. Among various results, it is confirmed that tight power control (within 1 dB) is a fundamental feature of this system. Then, we show how the CDMA may evolve in future microcellular scenarios to have a system able to optimally blend sources of traffic with different mobility (i.e., vehicular and personal).