Opportunistic channel assignment for Multihop Cellular Network handoff QoS improvement

With the number of subscribers in cellular networks increasing at an enormous rate, the limited bandwidth resources are under high stress. To meet the ever increasing spectrum demand, the advent of a new generation in cellular technology is inevitable. Multihop Cellular Network (MCN) characteristics appear to shape the fifth generation (5G) cellular networks. These networks are capable of reusing the bandwidth within the cells, effectively providing more channels with the limited spectrum available. However, when the nodes are highly mobile, the MCNs are faced with the problem of high handoffs due to rapid changes in the topology resulting in degradation of the Quality of Service (QoS). In this paper, we propose an algorithm that opportunistically allocates multihop and singlehop channels to improve the handoff QoS for highly mobile users. The users moving faster than a dynamically determined threshold are allotted singlehop channels by the BTS so that the average handoffs per call are maintained at an acceptable level. We also conclude that instead of pre-dedicating the channels for single hop and multihop use, a dynamic assignment of multihop/singlehop status to channels improves the handoff QoS with minimal increase in the blocking.