The effects of handoffs on microcell-based PCN networks

As the number of users in mobile communications increases, it is suggested to reduce the cell size as a means to increase traffic capacity. Even though the mobile systems with small sized cells may handle large traffic capacity, they may cause the degradations in quality of services, such as the increase of handoff failures and long processing time due to the increasing number of handoffs. In order to investigate the effect of handoffs on microcell-based personal communication networks, we first model the personal mobility problem in microcell environments and estimate the required signaling traffic load due to handoff calls in a given network configuration. Finally, a typical PCN network configuration with some network parameters is numerically evaluated in terms of the signaling traffic on each signaling link between PCN network elements, such as base station controllers, mobile switching centers, and visitor location registers