Communication Networks Adaptive radio resource management in an integrated GPRS/UMTS service network

Today's 2G/2.5G systems are designed to achieve 90--95 per cent coverage. Most operators plan to construct 3G base stations on previous 2G/2.5G stations. Consequently, integrated radio resource management (RRM) is comprised of timeslot-limited and interference-limited systems. To improve capacity, this study presents a novel resource management based on timeslot utilisation in an integrated general packet radio service/universal mobile telecommunications systems (GPRS/UMTS) service network. Although this approach gives UMTS high priority for sending data services, it also makes voice services available over general system for mobile communications (GSM). Experiments are performed to analyse the system performance, and indicate two observations. (1) The proportion of data sessions that obtain the required bandwidth is 90 per cent, and the average loss ratio is 1 per cent; the average delay time is qualified to support real-time services, except for data services in GSM/GPRS. (2) For a heavy load, UMTS and GPRS share the traffic loads efficiently, so the increase in the integrated system capacity is 7.14 per cent and 13.33 per cent for the 64 and 128 kbps data services, respectively. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.