Performance Evaluation of Cellular Networks Offering TV Services

In this paper, the capacity of orthogonal frequency-division multiple-access (OFDMA) networks is evaluated when serving mobile TV traffic. To introduce the service within the network, we develop analytical cross-layer models to assess the performance of the system when carrying TV calls over unicast connections. The presented cross-layer analysis is general and can be adapted to all types of multimedia services. We then focus on a TV-specific capacity analysis, exploiting the possibility of broadcasting TV channels over point-to-multipoint (PtM) connections. This includes investigating an enhanced broadcast solution where the modulation is dynamically adapted to the radio conditions of connected TV users. The more complete broadcast solution over single-frequency networks (SFNs) is then evaluated, based on a novel physical-layer model integrating the combined signal gain from neighboring cells. We finally show how to maximize the system capacity through a secondary usage of the SFN resources by elastic traffic. The presented models are evaluated using numerical applications and further validated through network simulations.