UMTS air interface voice/data capacity-part 2: forward link analysis

For pt.1 see ibid., p.2725-29. We evaluate the air interface capacity for voice, data, integrated voice and data services in UMTS. We present our analytical and simulation models for the forward link only; the reverse link analysis is presented in part 1. Compared to reverse link the analysis on the forward link is much more challenging because of the forward power allocation problem. We propose a new approach to model the interference distribution based on users' locations and shadow fading variables. Furthermore, we apply different approximation methods to calculate capacity based on voice and/or data traffic loading. We derive simple expressions that allow us to calculate the system capacity quickly and effectively. We also develop a static system level simulator to evaluate capacity and coverage for UMTS. By comparing our analytical results with simulations, we show that our analytical approach has a very good match with simulations.