Modeling and performance of a multilink packet access for wireless cellular systems

This paper considers the problem of packet transfer over the radio interface of a cellular network, in which the diversity area may provide alternate resources for mobiles communicating with base stations. A multilink architecture is proposed for the forward link of packet cellular networks. We develop a model for the access mechanism using a two-state MMPP (Markov modulated Poisson process) for the aggregate arrival and a seven-state MMPP for the overflow traffic approximation. An analytical approach is used to calculate the system performance including the probability distribution of packet transmission delay and packet loss rate. We show how a simplified approximate model based on a much smaller number of states for the resulting MMPP can capture the system performance in a reasonably accurate way. We quantify the performance improvement through a numerical example and also compare the results to those obtained from the simulation model.