Adaptive guard channel allocation and blocking probability estimation in PCS networks

Increasing the bandwidth utilization and reserving part of bandwidth for high priority traffic to reduce the blocking probability are conflicting requirements in wireless networks. Adaptive channel reservation strategies, in which bandwidth is allocated according to the instantaneous traffic load, have been proposed to address this issue. In this article we propose a new adaptive channel reservation strategy, which takes into account the more realistic non-exponential service time of wireless networks. We then study the behavior of channel adaptation under different user mobility patterns. Our study shows the performance advantages of the proposed strategy and is helpful in understanding how user mobility affects the channel reservation choices. These results can therefore be useful as guidelines for designing PCS networks. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.