Concept and optimization of an effective packet scheduling algorithm for multimedia traffic over HSDPA

The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is already realizing its ability to provide a rich tapestry of media to mobile users, including audio, video, data, and a combination of these termed `multimedia´. The high speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) solution within UMTS can greatly enhance bit rates on the downlink; however, given HSDPA using a shared channel, carefully considered scheduling of packet transmissions at HSDPA-enabled base stations is important. Hence in this paper, we present an effective inter-user and inter-class multimedia packet scheduling algorithm for HSDPA. We optimize the traffic class weightings that are central to the packet prioritization approach of the scheduling algorithm. Finally, we show our optimized algorithm to perform well through simulations of complex multimedia sessions being concurrently transmitted to users over the HSDPA link in a single cell