Optimizations on Scheduling Strategies for Enhanced Uplink on WCDMA

The enhanced uplink (E-UL) will be ready for deployment in the very near future. Consequently, the demand of know-how on efficient resource assignment and scheduling strategies on system/network level currently strongly arises from network operators. Beside a fast retransmission mechanism (hybrid ARQ HARQ), the second key advantage of the E-UL compared with the release 99 version is the Node B resource scheduler. Its performance and options, however, have rarely been treated so far in the literature. Consequently this paper presents and discusses different scheduling strategies and parameterizations for the E-UL. Especially the usability of the schedulers for different service traffic types and in mixed service scenarios is highlighted and clear recommendations are given. We also recommend certain optimizations of input values into the E-UL scheduling process that lead to a higher E-DCH performance and could be incorporated into future 3GPP versions and vendor implementations.