Counting handovers in a cellular mobile communication network: equilibrium renewal process approach

Knowing the number of handovers that a user makes during a call session is particularly important in cellular mobile communication networks in order to make appropriate dimensioning of virtual circuits for wireless cells. In this paper, we study the probability distributions and statistical moments for the number of handovers per call for a variety of combinations of the call holding time (CHT) and cell residence time (CRT) distributions. Based on the formulation in terms of equilibrium renewal processes, we obtain analytical expressions for the probability mass functions and moments of the handover number distribution. Numerical examples are provided that show a heavy-tail in the handover number distribution when the CHT has heavy-tail.