An efficient channel allocation strategy for mobile cellular networks

Efficient allocation of communication channels is critical for the performance of mobile cellular networks. In this paper, a new channel allocation algorithm for mobile cellular networks is proposed and evaluated. The algorithm is based on the fixed channel allocation strategy as its underlying scheme but can allocate channels at run-time adapted to the imbalance of load distribution among the cells. It employs a two-threshold scheme with light and heavy thresholds to classify the cells in the system into three classes in order to prevent frequent state changes between light and heavy cells. The mobile switch center (MSC) keeps the state information of the cells and runs the channel allocation algorithm on-demand to borrow free channels from light cells for heavy cells whenever it finds that there exist any heavy cells needing to borrow channels. When making a borrowing decision, the algorithm also takes into account the states of the co-channel cells of a potential lender cell. The results indicate that the new algorithm performs better than other algorithms with respect to the call blocking probability.