Benefits and feasibility of the partial loading approach in cellular mobile radio systems

This paper analyzes the feasibility and potential benefits of following a novel design strategy for cellular systems known as partial loading. This strategy seeks low channel occupancy per cell at the capacity limit, as opposed to the high channel occupancy per cell of more conventional design strategies. By doing so, a considerable flexibility for the radio resource management is obtained, which can be exploited both to increase system capacity and to ease the accommodation of highly fluctuating traffic. A comprehensive system capacity analysis has been performed, based on an analytical model, and it is shown that the introduction of flexibility through partial loading has a capacity cost associated with it. However, it is shown that when that flexibility is properly exploited by adaptive radio link control techniques, such as link adaptation, frequency hopping, or call admission control policies, that cost is more than compensated for, making the partial loading approach a very attractive strategy for the evolution of current TDMA systems and the design of future ones.