Dynamic enhanced radio resource allocation for wireless communication networks

Abstract

Mobility of the wireless user creates uncertainty in demand and non-optimum use of radio resources. Current wireless networks are periodically re-configured manually to improve network performance. These network reconfiguration and performance optimizations consume thousands of engineering hours and are often done by trial and error. However, the benefit of these efforts will be minimized as increasing competition throughout the world causes the service provider to dynamically change pricing structures to attract new customers and maintain existing customers. These changes in wireless service tariff and user base can drastically impact the network usage. This uncertainty further reduces the period of time a non-dynamically tuned network will perform optimally. Therefore, the need to reallocate the network and radio resources on the fly to maximize network infrastructure usage and minimize network costs will become increasingly important. This paper proposes a new enhanced method to dynamically allocate radio resources and evaluates the performance impact of this scheme using the configuration and operational measurements of an existing Global Standard Mobile (GSM) network over a period of several days. The new enhanced dynamic radio method reduces the total radio channel requirements by 10-20% over the currently used fixed allocation scheme. This new method improves the radio resource performance (the average C/I per Erlang) by 2.4 dB over a fixed allocation radio system.