A Call Admission Control Mechanism Using Mobility Graph in Mobile Multimedia Networks

One of the important issues in providing efficient multimedia traffic on a mobile computing environment is to guarantee the mobile host (client) with consistent QoS (Quality of Service). However, the QoS negotiated between the client and the network in one cell may not be honored due to client mobility, causing hand-offs between cells. In this paper, a call admission control mechanism is proposed to provide a consistent QoS guarantee for multimedia traffic on a mobile computing environment. Each cell can reserve fractional bandwidth for hand-off calls to its adjacent cells. It is important to determine the right amount of bandwidth reserved for hand-off calls because the blocking probability of new calls may increase if the amount of reserved bandwidth is more than necessary. An adaptive bandwidth reservation based on a mobility graph and a 2-tier cell structure is proposed to determine the amount of bandwidth to be reserved in the cell and to control dynamically its amount according to network conditions. We also propose a call admission control based on this bandwidth reservation and ``next-cell prediction' scheme using a mobility graph. In order to evaluate the performance of our call admission control mechanism, we measure metrics such as blocking probability of new calls, dropping probability of hand-off calls, and bandwidth utilization. The simulation results show that the performance of our mechanism is superior to that of existing mechanisms such as NR-CAT2, FR-CAT2, and AR-CAT2.     

A Network-Based Dynamic Channel Assignment Scheme for TDMA Cellular Systems

Network-based dynamic channel assignment (DCA) schemes can be used to increase the capacity of TDMA cellular systems. In this paper, a new distributed network-based DCA scheme, known as DCA with interference information, DCA-WI, is proposed and its performance is studied. In this scheme, a base station (BS) assigns a channel in such a way as to minimize the effect on the availability of channels for use in its interfering cells. To accomplish this, each BS maintains an interference information table which contains information about the local cell and its interfering cells. DCA-WI does not require system-wide information. Channel reassignment for new and completed calls are used to further reduce the call blocking probability. Simulation results show that DCA-WI provides a lower call blocking probability compared to other existing schemes in both uniform and nonuniform traffic distributions.     

Adaptive resource allocation for prioritized call admission over anATM-based wireless PCN

In future personal communications networks (PCNs) supporting network-wide handoffs, new and handoff requests will compete for connection resources in both the mobile and backbone networks. Forced call terminations due to handoff call blocking are generally more objectionable than new call blocking. The previously proposed guard channel scheme for radio channel allocation in cellular networks reduces handoff call blocking probability substantially at the expense of slight increases in new call blocking probability by giving resource access priority to handoff calls over new calls in call admission control. While the effectiveness of a fixed number of guard channels has been demonstrated under stationary traffic conditions, with nonstationary call arrival rates in a practical system, the achieved handoff call blocking probability may deviate significantly from the desired objective. We propose a novel dynamic guard channel scheme which adapts the number of guard channels in each cell according to the current estimate of the handoff call arrival rate derived from the current number of ongoing calls in neighboring cells and the mobility pattern, so as to keep the handoff call blocking probability close to the targeted objective while constraining the new call blocking probability to be below a given level. The proposed scheme is applicable to channel allocation over cellular mobile networks, and is extended to bandwidth allocation over the backbone network to enable a unified approach to prioritized call admission control over the ATM-based PCN     

NACR: A New Adaptive Channel Reservation in Cellular Communication Systems

Future Personal Communication Networks (PCN) will employ microcells and picocells to support a higher capacity, thus increasing the frequency of handoff calls. Forced call terminations due to handoff call blocking are generally more objectionable than new call blocking. The proposed guard channel schemes for radio channel allocation in cellular networks reduce handoff call blocking probability at the expense of increases in new call blocking probability by giving resource access priority to handoff calls over new calls in call admission control. Under uniform traffic assumptions, it has been shown that a fixed number of guard channels leads to good performance results. In a more realistic system, non-uniform traffic conditions should be considered. In this case, the achieved call blocking probability may deviate significantly from the desired objective. In this paper, we propose a new adaptive guard channel scheme: New Adaptive Channel Reservation (NACR). In NACR, for a given period of time, a given number of channels are guarded in each cell for handoff traffic. An approximate analytical model of NACR is presented. Tabu search method has been implemented in order to optimize the grade of service. Discrete event simulations of NACR were run. The effectiveness of the proposed method is emphasized on a complex configuration.     

Class-Based Service Connectivity Using Multi-level Bandwidth Adaptation in Multimedia Wireless Networks

Due to the fact that quality of service requirements are not very strict for all traffic types, more calls of higher priority can be accommodated by reducing some bandwidth allocation for the bandwidth adaptive calls. The bandwidth adaptation to accept a higher priority call is more than that of a lower priority call. Therefore, the multi-level bandwidth adaptation technique improves the overall forced call termination probability as well as provides priority of the traffic classes in terms of call blocking probability without reducing the bandwidth utilization. We propose a novel bandwidth adaptation model that releases multi-level of bandwidth from the existing multimedia traffic calls. The amount of released bandwidth is decided based on the priority of the requesting traffic calls and the number of existing bandwidth adaptive calls. This prioritization of traffic classes does not reduce the bandwidth utilization. Moreover, our scheme reduces the overall forced call termination probability significantly. The proposed scheme is modeled using the Markov Chain. The numerical results show that the proposed scheme is able to provide negligible handover call dropping probability as well as significantly reduced new call blocking probability of higher priority calls without increasing the overall forced call termination probability.     

Performance evaluation of a reservation random access scheme for packetized wireless systems with call control and hand-off loading

We consider a packet switched wireless network where each cell's communication channel is shared among packet voice sources. In this paper, we present a method for the design and analysis of wireless cells using a reservation random access (RRA) scheme for packet access control. This scheme is integrated with a call admission control procedure. We model the state process of a single cell as a vector Markov chain. We compute the steady state distribution of the Markov chain. This result is used to calculate the packet dropping probability and the call blocking probability. By setting limits on maximum permissible levels for the call blocking probability and the packet dropping probability, we obtain the Erlang capacity of a single cell, with and without hand-off traffic. For an illustrative RRA scheme, the Erlang capacity of a single cell is shown to be about twice that attained by a comparable fixed assigned TDMA scheme. We show that a cellular network using this RRA scheme and which applies can be no blocking of hand-off calls, exhibits similar call capacity levels.This work is supported by a University of California MICRO and Pacific-Bell Grant No. 94-107.     

Efficient channel borrowing strategy for real-time services inmultimedia wireless networks

An efficient resource sharing strategy is proposed for multimedia wireless networks. We assume the channel resource in a wireless system is partitioned into two sets: one for voice calls and one for video calls. In the proposed channel borrowing strategy, voice calls can borrow channels from those pre-allocated to video calls temporarily when all voice channels are busy. A threshold type decision policy is designed such that the channel borrowing request will be granted only if the quality of service (QoS) requirement on video call blocking will not be violated during the duration of channel lending. An analytical model is constructed for evaluating the performance of the channel borrowing strategy in a simplified wireless system and is verified by computer simulations. We found that the proposed channel borrowing scheme can significantly reduce the voice call blocking probability while the increase in video call blocking probability is insignificant     

Prioritized resource assignment for mobile cellular communicationsystems with mixed services and platform types

The proliferation of mobile, portable, and personal communication systems will bring a variety of offered services. Practical systems that are envisioned must support different types of calls. These may include voice only, mixed voice and data, high-speed data, low-speed data, image transmission, and an array of intelligent network services. In addition there may be a mixture of platforms (such as persons, autos, buses, trains, boats, and planes) having a range of mobility characteristics. In such environments, the bandwidth and/or resources needed for different call sessions will not be identical. As a result, calls will generally encounter different blocking and hand-off constraints. These effects are in addition to differences in blocking and forced (call) termination probabilities that are attributable to differing platform mobilities and (resource) channel quotas. Cellular systems with mixed platforms that support calls with differing resource requirements are considered. Loss-type systems and hybrid delay-loss systems are treated. In each case, priority access to resources for hand-off calls is allowable. We identify a suitable state characterization and framework for a performance analysis that enables numerical computation of theoretical performance results. Example performance characteristics are obtained. These show carried traffic, blocking probability, and forced termination probability for each platform type and for each call type     

Combined ICA and FCA Schemes for a Hierarchical Network

A combined idle channel assignment (ICA) and fixed channel assignment (FCA) scheme is proposed to improve the traffic performance in a hierarchical network. This dual-mode network integrates the Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and Time Division Duplex (TDD) modes of the Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) and Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA) in a given cell. This approach includes a high traffic load area and a blocked area as an example to evaluate the traffic performance. The ICA threshold and network timeout period effects on the traffic performance of this integrated dual-mode network are also investigated. The analytical results show that the handoff failure probabilities of the integrated dual-mode network can be reduced significantly with a minimal increase in the new call blocking probability when the combined ICA and FCA scheme replaces the FCA scheme. The integrated dual-mode network using the combined ICA and FCA scheme also increases the carried traffic. The traffic performance improvements for non-uniformly generated new calls are more significant than those for uniformly generated new calls when the combined ICA and FCA scheme is used. An increase in the high ICA threshold will result in an increase in the total carried traffic and an increase in the new call blocking and handoff failure probabilities for higher-tiered and low-tiered systems located in the high traffic load area. The traffic performance was evaluated using the discrete time simulation method to validate the analysis results.     

A distributed adaptive guard channel reservation scheme for cellular networks

In this paper, a distributed adaptive guard channel reservation (DAGCR) scheme is proposed to give priority to handoff calls. This scheme is built upon the concept of guard channels and it uses an adaptive algorithm to search automatically the optimal number of guard channels to be reserved at each base station. The quality‐of‐service (QoS) parameters used are the new and handoff call blockings. Simulation studies are performed to compare the present algorithm with the static guard channel policy. Simulation results show that this proposed algorithm guarantees the handoff call blocking probability to remain below the targeted threshold up to a substantially high offered load with a minimal blocking to new calls up to a moderate offered load and also shows significantly high channel utilization in all offered load conditions. This scheme is examined over a wide range of offered load. Thus, it seems the proposed scheme is very useful in controlling the blocking performances in wireless cellular networks. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Probabilistic call admission control in wireless multiservice networks

A new probabilistic call admission control scheme is proposed for multiservice wireless networks. The new scheme gradually suppresses the admission rate of the new calls and of the calls of each service class (SC) supported considering their priorities independently. The scheme is examined both for a single SC and for multiple SCs under general conditions. The analysis employs Markov chain theory and yields analytical expressions for the call blocking probabilities. The proposed analytical method was validated via simulations employing different distributions for the channel holding time; the simulations demonstrated the accuracy of the proposed framework.     

Actual call connection time characterization for wireless mobile networks under a general channel allocation scheme

Actual call connection time (ACCT) is the total time that a mobile user engages in communications over a wireless network during a call connection. Due to limited network resources of wireless mobile networks, a call connection may be prematurely disconnected and the ACCT for the call in general may not be the same as the requested call connection time (RCCT). The ACCT depends not only on the RCCT, but also on the network resource allocation scheme and network traffic. We characterize the ACCT and related performance metrics for wireless mobile networks under a newly proposed general channel allocation scheme. This scheme generalizes the nonprioritized scheme, the reserved channel scheme, the queueing priority scheme and the subrating scheme in such a way as to reduce the blocking probability of the handoff calls while keeping the ACCT as long as possible. Explicit formulae for the distribution and the expectation of the ACCT are obtained. The call completion probability, the call drop probability, and the average actual call connection times for both the complete calls and the incomplete calls are derived. The results can form the basis for designing better billing rate schemes by differentiating incomplete calls and complete calls.     

Adaptive channel reservation scheme for soft handoff in DS-CDMAcellular systems

Soft handoff techniques in direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA) systems provide mobile calls with seamless connections between adjacent cells. Channel reservation schemes are used to give high priority to more important soft handoff attempts over new call attempts. However, since the number of soft handoff attempts varies according to environmental conditions, fixed reservation schemes for handoff attempts can be inefficient. An adaptive channel reservation scheme is herein proposed to control the size of reservation capacity according to varying the number of soft handoff attempts. The proposed scheme also includes a balancing procedure between soft handoff failure and new call blocking to maximize the system capacity. To evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme, a Markovian model is developed that considers the interference-limited capacity effect of DS-CDMA systems. The analytical result shows that the proposed scheme yields a considerable enhancement in terms of new call blocking and soft handoff failure probabilities when compared with the conventional fixed channel reservation scheme     

Design and Analysis of a Channel Assignment Scheme for CDMA/TDMA Mobile Networks

In this paper, a channel assignment scheme is proposed for use in CDMA/TDMA mobile networks carrying voice and data traffic. In each cell, three types of calls are assumed to compete for access to the limited number of available channels by the cell: new voice calls, handoff voice calls, and data calls. The scheme uses the movable boundary concept in both the code and time domains in order to guarantee the quality of service (QoS) requirements of each type. A traditional Markov analysis method is employed to evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme. Measures, namely, the new call blocking probability, the handoff call forced termination probability, the data call loss probability, the expected number of handoff and the handoff link maintenance probability are obtained from the analysis. The numerical results, which are validated by simulation, indicate that the scheme helps meet the QoS requirements of the different call types.     

Handover and New Call Admission Policy Optimization for G3G Systems

Handover blocking of ongoing calls due to the mobility of users is a quantity that determines at most the Quality of Service (QoS) in microcellular and picocellular G3G systems environments. In this paper we propose a call admission policy, based on the fractional guard channel scheme, which additionally considers the blocking of new calls. Simulation results show that the proposed policy gives an improved system performance, compared to the most commonly used handover algorithms.     

Traffic management in a multicode CDMA system supporting softhandoffs

A traffic management scheme is proposed in a multicode code-division multiple-access system supporting soft handoff that uses guard channels and a queue for real-time traffic. Preemptive queue control gives priority to queued handoff calls. Handoff traffic is derived as a function of the new call arrival rate, the size of the soft handoff region, mobile speed, the new call blocking probability, and the handoff failure probability. System performance with K types of calls is analyzed by introducing a concept of effective channel. The effects of the number of guard channels, the number of effective channels, system capacity, and other factors are numerically investigated. The effectiveness of the proposed queue control scheme is also observed in terms of handoff processing delay     

Dynamic channel reservation based on mobility in wireless ATMnetworks

We present a dynamic channel reservation scheme to improve the utilization of wireless network resources while guaranteeing the required QoS of handoff calls. The wireless channels are dynamically reserved by using the request probability determined by the mobility characteristics and channel occupancy to guarantee acceptable quality of handoff calls and keep the new call blocking probability as low as possible     

Repacking on demand for two-tier wireless local loop

This paper proposes a radio channel assignment scheme called repacking on demand (RoD) for two-tier wireless local loop (WLL) networks. A two-tier WLL overlays a macrocell with several microcells. When a new call arrives at a two-tier WLL with RoD, if no idle channel is available in both the microcell and the macrocell, repacking is performed (i.e., a call in the macrocell is moved to its corresponding microcell), and then the reclaimed macrocell channel is used to serve the new call. An analytic model is proposed to compute the call blocking probability of the two-tier WLL with repacking. This analytic model is validated against simulation experiments. We prove that the blocking probability is not affected by the call holding time distributions, but is only dependent on the mean of the call holding times. Compared with some previous proposed schemes, RoD has low blocking probability and significantly reduces repacking rate.     

Voice and data integration at an ATM DSL access multiplexor

We analyze cell loss and call blocking at an ATM-based DSL access multiplexor which integrates 2 types of calls onto a channel through a common buffer. Type-1 calls have stringent delay, but relaxed cell loss QoS requirement, and are representative of voice. Type-2 calls have stringent cell loss but relaxed delay QoS requirement, and are representative of Internet data. We study an access strategy that allocates separate buffers to the 2 cell types and assigns priority to the voice buffer in accessing the channel. We apply a fluid flow method to analyze both cell loss and call blocking of the two types of calls. These results are then used to size the admission region at the access node under loss and blocking constraints. Numerical results are presented which quantify the interaction between cell loss and call blocking and the utility of the priority scheme compared to the FIFO scheme in handling the two traffic types.     

Analysis of a hybrid cutoff priority scheme for multiple classes of traffic in multimedia wireless networks

In this paper, we propose and analyze the performance of a new handoff scheme called hybrid cutoff priority scheme for wireless networks carrying multimedia traffic. The unique characteristics of this scheme include support for N classes of traffic, each may have different QoS requirements in terms of number of channels needed, holding time of the connection and cutoff priority. The proposed scheme can handle finite buffering for both new calls and handoffs. Futhermore, we take into consideration the departure of new calls due to caller impatience and the dropping of queued handoff calls due to unavailability of channels during the handoff period. The performance indices adopted in the evaluation using the Stochastic Petri Net (SPN) model include new call and handoff blocking probabilities, call forced termination probability, and channel utilization for each type of traffic. Impact on the performance measures by various system parameters such as queue length, traffic input and QoS of different traffic has also been studied. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.