D-RMA: a dynamic reservation multiple-access protocol for third generation cellular systems

A dynamic reservation multiple access (D-RMA) protocol for third generation cellular mobile radio systems is proposed and its behavior is investigated under variable multimedia traffic conditions. D-RMA is a protocol which is explicitly designed to support multimedia traffic. Its structure is based on traditional PRMA++ protocol, but in addition to what PRMA++ provides, it introduces a flexible dynamic approach in the choice of the percentage of bandwidth to be used for reservation. Separation between reservation and information channels, along with dynamic adaptation of the percentage of reservation bandwidth within a frame to traffic condition, guarantee the required QoS to multimedia services. Results obtained show that the performance of D-RMA are superior when compared to a traditional "nondynamic" protocol, in terms of both the offered quality of service (QoS) and number of connections which can be activated in a microcell at one time.