A CPX8216 hardware system based GPRS inter-broad handoff algorithm

General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is an enhancement to existing GSM networks that introduces high-speed packet data transmission. A inter-broad handoff may happen when a routing area update request is received by the SGSN if the GPRS system is implemented by a distributed processing system like the CPX8216 hardware system. Two performance metrics of inter-broad handoff: expected inter-broad overload probability and expected handoff number are presented. An optimal handoff algorithm for inter-broad handoff is the best tradeoff between inter-broad performance and expected handoff number. According to the definition of the adaptive handoff algorithm (Prakash et al. (1999)), we proposed a adaptive inter-broad handoff algorithm. Simulation results show that compared with the inter-broad handoff algorithm with fixed threshold, the adaptive handoff algorithm we propose has less expected handoff number at the same overload probability.