Reducing location update cost in a PCS network

Location tracking operations in a personal communications services (PCSs) network are expensive. Several strategies have been proposed to reduce the location update cost. This paper studies a special case of a location tracking algorithm called the alternative location algorithm. This special case is referred to as the two location algorithm (TLA). An analytical model is proposed to compare the performance of the TLA and the IS-41 protocol. Our study indicates that the performance of the TLA is significantly affected by the user moving patterns and the call traffic. If the user mobility is higher than the call frequency or the user tends to move back to the previously visited registration areas, then the TLA may significantly outperform IS-41. We also observe that the variance of the portable residence times in registration areas has an impact on the performance of the TLA (i.e., better performance is expected for larger variance)