VoIP Capacity Analysis of Wireless Multi-Access Networks using Access Selection Schemes

The wireless Multi-Access (MA) Networks are a consequence of the development of integration schemes for the currently available Radio Access Networks (RANs), that will allow their cooperation in an effort to better exploit their complementing features. Parallel to the wireless network evolution, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is one of the most popular real-time applications. Implementation of VoIP over MA networks requires the incorporation of efficient resource allocation strategies in order to meet the optimum combined system performance. In this paper, we present an MA environment composed of two generic RANs where we evaluate some Access Selection (AS) algorithms in terms of VoIP user capacity. The MA algorithm performance is measured with respect to a no MA scenario where there is no integration and cooperation among the RANs. By means of our proposed AS scheme (SBA), we obtain an important capacity gain in a scenario where the amounts of VoIP users inside and outside the coverage area of the microcell are the same.