Performance and capacity evaluations of CDMA mobile radio systems reverse link analysis

Performance and capacity of CDMA for mobile radio applications have been studied in detail by extensive computer simulation of a large service area consisting of 19 hexagonal cells. The results for the reverse link (mobile-to-base) are reported in this paper. Using typical system parameters in the simulations the following major results were obtained: (i) capacity is very sensitive to interference from neighboring cells, (ii) any increase in path loss between mobile and base has noticeable effects in interference reductions and capacity improvements, (iii) transmitted power dynamic ranges as high as 60 dB are needed for successful implementation of power control, (iv) performance of power control based on C/I is better than performance based on received power, (v) imperfect power control has drastic effects in capacity reductions, (vi) for ideal power control and with typical system parameters capacity of cellular CDMA is about 15 times capacity of analog systems. Imperfect power control or decrease in transmission path loss may, however, reduce this number by a factor of 2 to 3