A Hybrid Channel Allocation Algorithm using Hot-Spot Notification for Wireless Cellular Networks

The enormous growth of mobile telephone traffic, along with the limited number of channels available, requires efficient reuse of channels. Channel allocation schemes can be divided into three categories: fixed channel allocation (FCA), dynamic channel allocation (DCA), and hybrid channel allocation (HCA). In HCA, channels are divided into two disjoint sets: one set of channels is assigned to each cell on FCA basis, while the others are kept in a central pool for dynamic assignment. This paper presents a new hybrid channel allocation algorithm that sends a multi-level "hot-spot" notification to the central pool on each channel request that cannot be satisfied locally at the base station. This notification requests more than one channel be assigned to the requesting cell, proportional to the current hot-spot level of the cell. When a call using such a "borrowed" channel terminates, the cell may retain the channel depending upon its current hot-spot level. The simulation study of the protocol indicates that the protocol has low overhead, and it behaves similar to the FCA at high traffic and to the DCA at low traffic loads