Evaluating novel DCA variations for efficient channel assignment in cellular communications through a generic Java simulation system

In recent years, mobile telephony, computing and services have emerged as an important field of research. The rapid evolution of cellular technology and the augmentative user demand for advanced mobile services leads the industry to develop more efficient network structures. The increasing number of cellular users and the demand for broadband mobile communications (3rd and 4th generation) drives to the research of new methodologies for the design of cellular networks and services. One of the issues in such a design is selection of channel allocation schemes. This paper thoroughly reviews centralized and mainly distributed DCA schemes and presents several new efficient variations suitable for large scale cellular systems. On the other hand, Simulation environments more than ever offer the opportunity to develop and study with low cost new structures and methods for the implementation of new services. To this end, this paper proposes a comprehensive simulation system for evaluating channel assignment schemes incorporating their principles, entities and concepts involved. The proposed system is implemented in Java, in order to create a high performance generic simulation environment with the future capability of internetworking. The system is designed with the goal to be efficient in simulating large scale generic cellular telecommunication systems. Moreover, another goal of the proposed system is to serve as a test bed for the evaluation and development of DCA schemes (especially for educational purposes) involved in such large scale cellular systems towards their planning as effective cellular mobile radio networks.