Flat-Rate Packet Scheduling for the WCDMA Systems with HSDPA

To attract more users to use mobile packet services, mobile operators have begun to provide flat-rate packet services in the WCDMA system with High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA). Since usage does not incur extra cost, flat-rate users may always stay on line and occupy most of the radio channel resources. In this paper, we consider a HSDPA network serving two types of user packets: charged packets (CPs) and flat-rate packets (FRPs). We consider the balance between serving the FRPs and CPs. Four downlink packet scheduling methods were studied in this paper. Our study using Markov process shows that Dynamic Discard Timer for FRPs and Dynamic Guard Slots for CPs methods are more effective in transmitting downlink CPs especially when the downlink FRP traffic is high. Therefore, they are better in guaranteeing the system throughput for CPs, and thus the operator revenue can be better protected.