Random Access Capacity Evaluation with Synchronized MTC Users over Wireless Networks

Increased attention has been drawn to machine type communication (MTC) lately, which represents important extension for user functionality in today´s technologies, as well as an important potential for marketing expansion. GERAN studies over MTC has mainly focused on applications requiring low throughput and wide coverage such as smart meter, which could cause some impacts over normal data users if operating in a synchronous manner. This paper proposes a new methodology for studying the impact on signaling channels when mixture of synchronous and asynchronous traffic is present in the network. This is based on statistical analysis, considering signaling accessing attempts as driven by a Poisson process. In this approach successive random access attempts by the mobile stations are considered as well as the response on the network side. First implementation is held for GSM/GPRS network, although generalization of the method for other technologies is possible. The simulated results show potential problems to be solved when a large number of synchronized users is present. Additionally, an analysis on the effects of the different levels of synchronization and the addition of extra signaling channels is included. Results also point out possible development paths that could be taken when designing new features to make networks more robust to synchronized traffic.