Capacity improvement in cellular systems through distributed, C/I-based power control

A distributed, interference-based dynamic channel assignment scheme is assessed and compared to maximum packing. The system takes action based on knowledge of C/I of active calls. Distributed power control is also used in the call admission and handoff process. We study the impact of the distributed C/I based power control on the system performance. We focus on the blocking probability, power level and number of call re-arrangements (intra-cell handoffs). In addition, several variants of the basic assignment algorithm are introduced and their performances are compared. We find that the distributed power control scheme has to be carefully implemented so that the system does not become unstable. In addition, when the uplink/downlink C/I is monitored, the transmitted power is lowered, and the capacity of the system may be improved. The improved performance is due to less variation of average call quality. The improvement in capacity is gained at the expense of re-arrangements, which increase with stricter control