Evaluation of performance improvement of IS-2000-A in comparison to IS-2000

IS-2000 Release 0 is the standard for the first phase of cdma2000, a 3G wireless technology. Release 0 allows a maximum single channel rate of 153.6 kb/s. The next release, IS-2000 Release A, was introduced to improve the performance of cdma2000. A key enhancement increases the maximum single channel rate to 307.2 kb/s. We evaluate the performance benefits of this higher data rate feature. Simulations show there is no significant sector throughput increase. The increase in user throughput depends on system loading, and for highly loaded systems the gain is small. We analyze the dependency of throughput gain on the system power loading, and discuss the channel rate distribution and other characteristics of system performance. We provide recommendations to maximize the benefits of the 307.2 kb/s channel and identify configurations that will not benefit from 307.2 kb/s.