Performance evaluation of hierarchical cellular CDMA networks with soft handoff queueing

We consider hierarchical cellular code-division multiple-access networks supporting soft handoff, where users with different mobility are assigned to different layers, i.e., microcells in the lower layer are used to carry slow users, whereas macrocells in the upper layer are for fast users, and handoff queues are provided for handoff calls that cannot obtain the required channel immediately, so that forced termination probability can be reduced. According to whether handoff queues are provided in microcells and/or macrocells, four different call admission control schemes are proposed and studied. We derive the mathematical model of the considered system with multidimensional birth-death process and utilize Gauss-Seidel iterative method to find the steady-state probability distribution and thus the performance measures of interest: new call blocking probability, handoff failure probability, and forced termination probability. Analytical results show that providing handoff queues in both microcells and macrocells can achieve largest performance improvement. Furthermore, handoff queue size greater than a threshold is shown to have little effect on performance measures of interest. Last but not least, the studied two-tier system is compared with a one-tier counterpart. It is shown that the two-tier system performs better in terms of average number of handoffs per fast call.