Over-the-air techniques to determine IS-95 base station resource allocation

Federal communications users are increasingly dependent on commercial wireless systems. In the aftermath of both man-made and natural disasters, commercial wireless systems will be in high demand. Federal and commercial users must compete for scarce resources during high demand situations. Since most network performance data is not publicly available, it is crucial that federal wireless network users have the same level of information as the service providers. Wireless network performance data could provide federal users with the ability to avoid congested (high call-blocking) areas, view the effectiveness of wireless priority services, and assess infrastructure vulnerabilities. Walsh channel power occupancy can be used as an indicator of IS-95 network congestion. This paper describes methods and techniques used to conduct over-the-air measurements of IS-95 Walsh channel power occupancy. This data is then used to examine short and long term traffic channel statistics for several IS-95 carriers in the Denver metropolitan area.