Channel allocation for broadband fixed wireless access

Existing channel allocation methods are usually implemented for voice oriented services where the aim is to reduce the call blocking and call dropping rate. In this paper, we investigate channel allocation schemes appropriate for data oriented services in a Broadband Fixed Wireless Access network where the aim is to reduce interference and improve overall packet throughput. A Fixed Channel Allocation (FCA) scheme employing a Genetic Algorithm (FCA-GA) that is not constrained by a compatibility matrix is proposed. The performance of the proposed FCA-GA scheme is simulated in a small network with a static interference environment and these results are used as a benchmark for three other distributed Dynamic Channel Allocation (DCA) schemes namely, the Random Channel Allocation (RND), Least Interfered Method (LI) and DCA using a Genetic Algorithm DCA-GA. It is shown that the Signal to Interference Ratio (SIR) performance of the DCA-GA scheme is reasonably close to that achieved by FCA-GA. The performance of LI is inferior to that of DCA-GA and RND has the worst performance of all.