Supporting rate guarantee and fair access for bursty data traffic in W-CDMA

Abstract

This paper presents a new protocol for statistical multiplexing of bursty data traffic in the forward (base-to-mobile) link of a wireless wideband code division multiple access (W-CDMA) system using orthogonal variable spreading factor (OVSF) codes. At the heart of the protocol is an efficient scheduling algorithm that dynamically assigns an OVSF code to a mobile user on a timeslot-by-timeslot basis and allows many users with bursty traffic to share a limited set of OVSF codes. An important feature of our protocol is that it can provide a heterogeneous data rate guarantee to each mobile user and fully utilize the system capacity. Moreover, the unreserved bandwidth of the network can be shared fairly among competing mobile users.