A Queueing Theoretic Approach to the Dimensioning of Wireless Cellular Networks Serving Variable-Bit-Rate Calls

Traffic demand in wireless cellular networks is rapidly increasing, particularly for data transmission. It is crucial to characterize the network parameters, such as the number of base stations, that permitting coping with this increase. Such characterization, called dimensioning, is the central objective of this paper. Our approach consists of using results from queueing theory to build a rapid and accurate method to calculate the quality-of-service (QoS) perceived by the users. The comparison of the results of this method to those of Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) simulations for some Long-Term Evolution configurations permits the validation of the accuracy of the proposed approach. Once validated, this approach is used to solve the dimensioning problem. In doing so, we take into account the dependence between the interference and the traffic demand and compare the results with those of the classical assumption neglecting such dependence. Therefore, the proposed approach uses the 3GPP link simulation results and goes beyond by rapidly solving QoS evaluation and dimensioning problems.