A comparative study of the effects of microdiversity and macrodiversity on CDMA forward-link capacity

Both microdiversity and macrodiversity can effectively overcome the harmful effect of fading. Most of previous work focused on their benefits to the reverse link in CDMA systems. However, their effects on the forward link are less well understood. We present an analytical model on forward-link capacity in an H-port macrodiversity system with power control. Maximum ratio transmission (MRT) is considered instead of switched selection. We also make a comparison between the performance of microdiversity and macrodiversity on the forward-ink. The simulation results show that, both types of diversity can bring benefits to the forward-link capacity. However, with macrodiversity higher capacity can be obtained at the cost of complexity.