Hand-off traffic modelling in cellular networks

Abstract

From a teletraffic analysis point of view, hand-off traffic is the main distinguishing feature between fixed (POTS) telephone networks and mobile telephone networks. In earlier macro-cellular network analysis, hand-off traffic was generally modelled as a Poisson process. With the present-day proliferation of micro-cellular networks, mobiles may request for hand-off many times at many different cellular boundaries and therefore undergo a series of hand-offs that may alter their traffic profile. The Poisson assumption may no longer be valid for calls that have been handed off a great many times. We model hand-off traffic using the mean and the variance of its probability distribution. We attempt to capture the change in traffic profile that occurs during the hand-off process. We show that hand-off traffic is in fact a smooth traffic process and that the two moment representation of hand-off traffic is superior to the single moment representation.