An adaptive distributed channel allocation strategy for mobile cellular networks

There are two approaches to design a distributed channel allocation algorithm: Search and Update. The update approach has shorter acquisition delay and lower call blocking rate, but higher message complexity. On the other hand, the search approach has lower message complexity, but longer acquisition delay and higher call blocking rate. In this paper, we propose a novel distributed acquisition algorithm, which has similar message complexity as the search approach and similar acquisition delay as the update approach. Also, we propose a channel selection algorithm, which has low call blocking rate and low intra-handoff overhead. By integrating the channel selection algorithm into our channel acquisition algorithm, we get a complete distributed channel allocation algorithm. By keeping the borrowed channels, our channel allocation algorithm adapts to the network traffic; i.e., free channels are transferred to hot cells to achieve load balance. Simulation results show that our algorithm significantly outperforms the search approach and the update approach in terms of call blocking rate, message complexity, and acquisition delay.