Adjacent-Cell Interference in Direct-Sequence CDMA Forward Traffic Channels

Each transmission from a base station in a mobile cellular direct-sequence CDMA network is a source of interference for the receivers in the mobile handsets that are operating in adjacent cells. This interference can limit the capacity of the forward traffic channels. The effect of adjacent-cell interference on the performance of the handset receivers is evaluated for a mobile cellular CDMA network that employs quadriphase-shift-key spreading, convolutional coding, and soft-decision decoding. It is demonstrated that acceptable performance may not be possible for a fully loaded cellular network. Of particular interest in this paper are cellular networks in which the base stations are mobile and must be interconnected by wireless communication links. Such networks are important for military applications and certain civilian emergency communications services.