On the capacity of spread-spectrum CDMA for mobile radio

The relative capacities of a basic frequency division multiple access (FDMA) and code-division multiple access (CDMA) system are examined. It is shown that in the absence of capacity enhancing features, such as voice activity detection and cell sectorization, the capacity of each system is comparable. The authors assess the sensitivity of the CDMA system to typical propagation conditions, power control errors, and realistic antenna patterns, and show that the capacity of a CDMA system may be significantly reduced under nonideal conditions