Analysis of user membership in cellular CDMA networks

In this paper, an analysis of the user membership in a cellular CDMA network is proposed. It is based on the estimate of the local mean attenuation on the radio links from a mobile terminal to each of the surrounding base stations. The estimate is carried out through proper filtering of the sequences of signal strength measurements performed on the received pilot signals. Two performance measures are considered: the probability that the best base station will not be selected, and the average number of membership switchings per time unit. Assuming a channel model with lognormal shadowing and fast fading superimposed, it is seen that a proper choice of the filter parameters is required to achieve the lowest values for these performance measures. The results obtained are of interest for handover and power control algorithms.