An Analytical Expression for Service Curves of Fading Channels

In this paper, we develop a method for analyzing time-varying wireless channels in the context of the modern theory of the stochastic network calculus. In particular, our technique is applicable to channels that can be modeled as Markov chains, which is the case of channels subject to Rayleigh fading. Our approach relies on theoretical results on the convergence time of reversible Markov processes and is applicable to chains with an arbitrary number of states. We provide two expressions for the delay tail distribution of traffic transmitted over a fading channel fed by a Markov source. The first expression is tighter and only requires a simple numerical minimization, the second expression is looser, but is in closed form.