A flexible multiple access scheme for mobile communications

Two candidate multiple access schemes with a potential to support a wide range of services is proposed. The performance of the schemes are investigated and compared with some other multiple access schemes. The results show that the proposed solutions can indeed increase the system throughput relative to the second generation digital cellular system (GSM). The first scheme has the advantage that the control is distributed amongst the terminals and its realization at the base station and mobile stations is not complicated, but the speech quality is degraded since it has to drop the packets which suffer delays. This problem is eliminated in the second scheme where all the voice subscribers retain a fraction of their slot for signalling purposes while during silence periods. The speech quality in second scheme remains intact, and the inclusion of data services in the system does not mean that the speech quality has been sacrificed