Soft handoffs in CDMA mobile systems

This article presents an overview of soft handoff, an idea which is becoming quite important because of its use in the IS-95 code-division multiple access (CDMA) cellular phone standard. The benefits and disadvantages of using soft handoff over hard handoff are discussed, with most results drawn from the available literature. The two most well-known benefits are fade margin improvement and higher uplink capacity, while disadvantages include increased downlink interference and more complex implementation. Handoff parameter optimization is extremely important, so various studies on the trade-offs to be considered when selecting these parameters are surveyed, from both the link quality and resource allocation perspectives. Finally, research directions and future trends are discussed.