QoS-aware power control and handoff prioritization in 3G WCDMA networks

Quality of service aware power control (QaPC) mechanisms that supersede to the traditional closed loop power control in wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) type of networks, such as the Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS), provide significant advantages over blind channel estimation mechanisms. These mechanisms integrate specific QoS requirements of users in power control decision yielding optimal use of resources available at the base. Similarly QoS aware prioritization of handoffs (QaHO) that leverage user QoS profile can also yield significant improvements over blind prioritization. This paper presents two such QaPC and QaHO mechanisms which are based on the class of service, the bitrate, and the service degradation descriptor (SDD) [O. Lataoui et al., 2000] as enabling QoS parameters. The performance of our combined QaPC and QaHO mechanisms obtained using the test bed described in [A.Y. Elbatji et al., Sept. 2003], under a variety of load and traffic scenarios, and admission strategies is also presented. The results show that, when measured against blind mechanisms, the combined QaPC and QaHO significantly improves contract upholding of premium service mobile users, as well as improve resource utilization by more than 22% while improving handoffs failures by 12 %.