Multiple-access interference processes are self-similar in multimedia CDMA cellular networks

We consider bursty data communications in code-division multiple-access (CDMA) cellular networks. The significant fluctuation of the cochannel multiple-access interference (MAI) in such systems makes it very challenging to carry out radio resource management. A main goal of this paper is to obtain a fundamental understanding of the temporal correlation structure of the MAI, which plays a crucial role in effective resource allocation. To this end, we take a cross-layer design approach, and characterize the stochastic MAI process while taking into account both the burstiness of data traffic and time-varying channel conditions. Our main results reveal that under standard assumptions on ON/OFF traffic flows and fading channels, the MAI process exhibits scale-invariant burstiness and is "self-similar" (with Hurst parameter 1/2