Statistical properties of silence gap in public mobile telephony channels with application to data transmission

This paper examines the probability distribution of the channel idle time in mobile public telephony systems: personal communication systems (PCS) and private mobile radio (PMR). Results are used to predict the time available for data transmission on channels dynamically assigned to voice and data, which usually prioritize voice with preemption. The probability of having to interrupt a data block because the channel is preempted by voice is analytically derived. Several strategies can be used to include the most suitable data block first in silence gaps. Different policies should depend on statistical properties of the gap for a specific system to achieve optimal performance.