GSM versus CDMA: performance comparisons

In this paper, performance comparisons between the European mobile radio system GSM and one with a DS-CDMA access technique, based on the IS-95 Standard, are carried out in terms of link budgets and capacity evaluations. The same working conditions and the same cellular coverage have been adopted with the aim of performing a significant comparison between the two systems. In particular, system capacity has been evaluated in outdoor urban and quasi-open rural environments, under the hypothesis that the mobile terminals transmit with the same mean power. Moreover, non-ideal power control effects have been taken into account in performance evaluation.