Maximizing the throughput of CDMA data communications

We analyze aggregate throughput as a function of the transmitter power levels and the number of terminals sending data to a CDMA base station. We find that when noise and out-of-cell interference are negligible, received power balancing maximizes the aggregate throughout of the base station, provided the population of active terminals does not exceed an optimum size. The optimum number of active terminals depends on the CDMA processing gain and the details of the physical layer and data link layer. These details are summarized in a univariate frame success function. When noise is present, power balancing is suboptimal mathematically but attractive for practical implementation.