Computer Communications 27 (2004) 792–800

www.elsevier.com/locate/comcom

Code reservation schemes at the forward link in WCDMA

A.N. Rouskas*, D.N. Skoutas, G.T. Kormentzas, D.D. Vergados
Department of Information and Communication Systems Engineering, University of the Aegean, Karlovassi, Samos 83200, Greece
Received 7 February 2003; revised 27 January 2004; accepted 30 January 2004

Abstract
We examine resource reservation schemes for the management of orthogonal variable spreading factor (OVSF) codes at the forward link
of 3G mobile communications systems employing WCDMA. Like in every multi-service network, calls with different rate requirements will
perceive very dissimilar system performance at the forward link in 3G systems if no measures are taken and the channelization code tree is
treated as a common pool of resources. Assuming that the traffic level for each class is known in advance, we introduce complete sharing
(CS), complete partitioning (CP) and hybrid partitioning (HP) policies to manage the code tree. At the resource reservation level, we develop
an efficient method to partition the available codes based on the offered traffic load of each class of calls and the size of the tree. The resulting
partition is optimal in the sense that the maximum blocking probability of the different rate classes is minimized. At the call level, we use a
real-time scheme to assign free codes to incoming requests, and evaluate its performance in terms of blocking probability per traffic class and
utilization of codes in conjunction with the partitioning method used. It turns out that code blocking, which is encountered on this type of
systems, further deteriorates the unfairness conditions at the forward link. Our simulation results show that fair access to codes by different
rate calls is assured more by CP and less by HP schemes, at the expense of slightly lower code utilization at medium to high loads, compared
to the CS scheme. Also, hybrid schemes absorb small traffic deviations more efficiently than CP, which is generally optimized for certain
traffic mixes.
q 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Orthogonal variable spreading factor codes; Code reservation; WCDMA; Third generation systems

1. Introduction
High data rate and variable data rate services ranging
from 144 to 384 kbps for wide and up to 2 Mbps for low
coverage and mobility are anticipated in 3G mobile
communication systems. In WCDMA, the separation of
simultaneous data transmissions from a user or base station,
as well as the separation of the various data transmissions of
a single user is done in a two-step process, spreading and
scrambling. During spreading, each individual data stream
is spread to the chip rate by the application of a spreading
code or else a channelization code, and after that, the spread
signal is scrambled by the application of a scrambling code
operating at the chip rate. In the inverse link, each mobile
station has the whole set of channelization codes available
to separate its own transmissions. On the other hand, in the
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ30-227-308-2236; fax: þ 30-227-308-
2009.
E-mail address: arouskas@aegean.gr (A.N. Rouskas).
0140-3664/$ - see front matter q 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.comcom.2004.01.026
forward link, the whole set of channelization codes are used
to separate data transmissions from all users of one cell.
WCDMA supports multiple rate transmission using
single orthogonal channelization codes with variable
spreading factors (SFs), the so-called orthogonal variable
spreading factor (OVSF) codes. Single OVSF code
operation requires less hardware complexity at the user
equipment, compared to multi-code operation, and can
provide only data rates, which are a power of two times the
lowest basic rate. Obviously, OVSF codes at the forward
link are valuable and scarce resources, and this is the reason
why the OVSF code assignment problem has been receiving
great attention recently.
The problem is similar to that faced by designers of
multi-rate networks, who need to compromise the require-
ment of supporting various multi-rate services with two
mutually conflicting goals: (a) provide a reasonable level of
performance without letting the demand from some type of
service excluding the other types, and at the same time (b)
keep the utilization of resources as high as possible. This
situation is studied extensively in the area of ATM
 A.N. Rouskas et al. / Computer Communications 27 (2004) 792–800
networks, fixed or wireless (see for example Ref. [1] and the
references therein). Alternative methodologies in the area of
ATM networks can be found in Ref. [2].
To cope with this problem, priority based schemes for
different service classes are presented in Ref. [3], while a
new protocol that dynamically assigns OVSF codes on a
timeslot basis to provide for data rate guarantee for bursty
traffic is presented in Ref. [4]. According to Ref. [5], a target
position is defined for each traffic class and codes close to
the target position are dynamically allocated to calls of the
same class. The tuning of target positions is not considered,
however, and this problem is left open. Another work in this
area [6], where three different rate classes (voice, video and
data) are considered, proposes a leftmost code assignment
procedure for voice terminals, combined with reassign-
ments at the release of a connection to make room for video
traffic requests. In Ref. [7], the situation of code blocking is
introduced, where an incoming call may be blocked even if
there is spare capacity to handle the new call. Code blocking
may appear only on incoming calls with rate greater than the
lower code rate available and is due to the scattering of
lower layer free codes along the tree. This phenomenon
further deteriorates the performance perceived by higher
rate calls.
In this paper, we introduce resource partitioning schemes
to provide for fair access of different rate calls to the
available limited set of OVSF codes at the forward link of
WCDMA systems. The division of codes is made according
to some prior knowledge of network operators about the
traffic level of different classes. The procedure is optimal in
the sense that the maximum blocking probability of the
different rate calls is minimized and efficient in the sense
that computation of the size of different partitions is
relatively fast. The latter is due to the special structure
and properties of the channelization code tree.
At the two extremes, we have complete sharing (CS)
strategy, in which the whole code tree is considered as a
common pool of resources, and complete partitioning (CP)
strategy, where each traffic rate class is allocated a separate
non-overlapping partition of the code tree for use. Between
the two extremes, hybrid partitioning (HP) strategies are
developed and the performance of resource reservation
strategies are studied in terms of blocking per class and code
utilization. Simulation results show that: (a) fair access to
codes is assured more by CP and less by HPs, especially at
medium to high loads, at the expense of slightly lower code
utilization compared to CS; (b) when reassignments are
used, the same behavior is shifted towards higher loads; and
(c) HPs are more immune against traffic variations than CP,
which is usually optimized for certain traffic mixes.
The paper is organized as follows. The system model is
presented in Section 2. The long term resource reservation
policies, as well as the method to compute the size of each
partition are presented in Section 3. The real-time assign-
ment operation is developed in Section 4. Finally, Section 5
793
presents and discusses the simulation results, and the paper
is concluded in Section 6.
2. System model
A detailed description on OVSF code generation can be
found in Refs. [8,9]. The OVSF code tree is a binary tree with
h layers, and each node represents a channelization code Ckl ;
where k ¼ 1; …; h is the layer number, and l ¼ 1; …; 2h2k is
the code number within layer k: The lowest layer is the leaf
layer and the highest layer is the root layer. The lower the layer
of a code, the higher the SF and the lower the code rate. We
will refer to R as the basic code rate available achieved by a
leaf layer code and we will denote by SFmax the corresponding
maximum SF of the leaf layer codes. Then the rate of the root
layer code is 2h21 R; and its SF is SFmax =2h21 :
Codes of the same layer, as well as codes that do not lie
on the same path from a leaf to the root of the tree, are
orthogonal and can be simultaneously assigned to different
data transmissions in the same cell. Non-orthogonal are the
codes that lie on the same path from a leaf to the root of the
tree and cannot be allocated simultaneously. We will refer
to this constraint as the orthogonality constraint that must
be preserved during the allocation process, otherwise the
resulting signals will interfere.
Fig. 1 depicts a 5-layer code tree. White codes in the
figure denote empty (free) codes that can be allocated to
incoming calls of the same rate. Black codes denote busy
(occupied) codes that are already allocated to ongoing calls,
while grey codes denote blocked codes, which are refrained
from use due to an allocation of a non-orthogonal code. Due
to the orthogonality constraint, the assignment of a code is
possible, if and only if none of its ancestor codes and none
of its descendant codes are occupied. Once a code is
assigned, all of its ancestors, as well as all of its descendants
are blocked and can be used after the code is released. For
example, the assignment of code C34 immediately blocks its
ancestor codes C51 ; C42 ; and its descendant codes C27 ; C28 ;
C1;13 ; C1;14 ; C1;15 and C1;16 ; as shown in Fig. 1.
In the same figure, the code tree capacity is 16R; the used
capacity is 8R; and the remaining capacity is 8R:
Unfortunately, if a 8R call arrives, it will be blocked even
if capacity exists to accommodate it. This situation is
known as code blocking [7], where an incoming call may
be blocked even if there is spare capacity that can handle
the new call. The higher the rate of the incoming call, the
Fig. 1. Example OVSF code tree.
794 A.N. Rouskas et al. / Computer Communications 27 (2004) 792–800
worse the code blocking, in other words higher rate calls are
facing severe limitations on accessing the codes especially
at increasing loads. This undesirable effect further contrib-
utes to the unfair utilization of higher layer codes. So, if
code allocations are not well managed and packed the
higher rate calls will perceive very low performance level.
In this paper, we consider a single cell system and study the
code-limited capacity problem as in Ref. [7], while we ignore
the interference-limited situation and the fact that certain
parts of the code tree are reserved for control channels. So in
our study we use a single cell system and assume that the
whole set of codes are available at any time for user data
transmissions. If we had to take into account these additional
constraints we would simply reduce the set of available codes
accordingly. Furthermore, although multi-code operation is
also possible at the expense of higher complexity at the
mobile terminal [10,11], we consider only single OVSF code
operation and assume that only calls with rates equal to the
OVSF code rates are introduced to the system.
Finally, we will use the following assumptions. Inter-
arrival times between consecutive calls of rate requirement
iR; i ¼ 2k21 ; k ¼ 1; …; h; are exponential with mean 1=li
and call durations are exponentially distributed with mean
1=mi : The offered load for rate class iR is then ai ¼ li =mi :
The same assumptions are made by other authors in this area
of research [5,7]. The main reason for making these
assumptions, instead of using more sophisticated models
for our traffic sources, is actually the fact that we deal with
the problem at the resource reservation and session levels,
rather than the packet scheduling level. Additionally, the
algorithms proposed herein are intended for use with the
downlink dedicated channel, which is allocated to a call for
the whole duration of the connection.
3. Code reservation
Network operators of multi-service networks are facing
the conflicting requirements of high network resource
utilization and provision of acceptable performance levels
for all services with stringent QoS requirements. Extensive
research on this area has proposed resource reservation as the
most appropriate technique to provide fair use of the
resources especially at medium to high loads, where low
rate services can more easily obtain access to the network
resource, dominate the use of the bandwidth and exclude the
higher rate services [1,12,13]. Real-time call admission
control may delay or block a request, if network resources,
that would guarantee the requested QoS, are not available at
the time of the call. Additionally, call control may exploit
multiplexing of low QoS services, such as background traffic,
as a means to preserve high network utilization. The set of
channelization codes is treated as the limited valuable set of
network resources, and two levels of code management are
identified, considering only constant bit rate services with
rates equal to the available code rates:
† at the code reservation level, the network operator is
given the possibility to reserve certain parts of the OVSF
code tree for certain rate calls, and
† at the code request level incoming calls are assigned to
free codes of the part that those calls have access to.
Obviously, the former is a resource planning, while the
latter is a real-time operation.
3.1. Allocation strategies at the code reservation level
We consider previously proposed strategies, like CS, CP
and HP, and adapt them to the OVSF code reservation
problem in WCDMA.
A. Complete sharing (CS). When there is no partition of
the code tree and each incoming call can have access to
every code (at the corresponding rate level of the tree) that
preserves the orthogonality constraint, then we have the CS
strategy. This strategy is the only one studied so far in the
context of OVSF code assignment at the forward link of
WCDMA interface.
B. Complete partitioning (CP). When different rate calls
have access to different non-overlapping partitions of the
code tree, then we have the CP strategy.
C. Hybrid partitioning (HP). Between the two extreme
strategies, HP schemes can be devised. For example, one
solution might be the division of the code tree in two parts. In
the first part, CS may be applied, while the second part is kept
for CP. However, due to the abrupt difference on the size of
code rates, this type of hybrid strategies are not expected to
behave well, because of the aggressiveness of the lower rate
calls. Indeed, our early simulation results indicated that, at
medium to high loads, the lower rate calls flood the common
pool (first part of the tree), and higher rate calls are soon
confined to their own partitions in the second part of the tree.
Thus, from a CP scheme we introduce the following
hybrid scheme, which favors higher rate over lower rate
calls. The calls of rate iR can have access not only to the
partition of their own but also to the initial partition of the
immediately lower rate iR=2 codes. However, by doing so,
there is always the possibility that the new area for the calls
of rate iR also have access to some part of the initial
partition of rate iR=4: This is possible due to the structure of
the channelization code tree and will be explained shortly.
To avoid this situation, rate iR calls are allowed to access
only that part of the initial partition of rate iR=2 codes that
does not overlap with the initial partition of the rate iR=4
codes. This HP strategy is denoted by HP1.
Similarly, if calls of rate iR can have access to that part
of the initial partitions of iR=2 and iR=4 calls that does not
overlap with the initial partition of iR=8 calls, the HP
strategy is denoted by HP2, and so on. Within a shared
area, the codes are treated as a common resource by the
calls that have access to that area, just like in the CS
strategy. However, incoming calls of rate iR first search for
empty codes in their partition and if no free codes are
 A.N. Rouskas et al. / Computer Communications 27 (2004) 792–800
Fig. 2. Complete partitioning vs hybrid partitionings 1 and 2.
found, the search is continued to the common area of iR
and iR=2 calls.
The aforementioned CP and HP strategies are shown
in Fig. 2. The reader can observe from Fig. 2(b) that in
the case of HP1, the new area of 8R codes does overlap
with only a part of the initial partition of 4R: By doing
so, we prevent the overlap of this new area of 8R codes
with the initial partition of the 2R codes.
When the number of different traffic classes increases,
then it is always possible to aggregate neighboring
classes using HP1. However, since the size of the tree
is limited, the number of possible traffic classes is small
and the need for class aggregation is not very likely to
appear.
3.2. Partitioning problem
Let us assume a tree of height h; a set of k different traffic
rate classes, and a high population of users for each traffic
rate class. The offered load ai ¼ li =mi of each population set
is assumed to be known in advance by the network operator.
Before proceeding to the formulation of the optimal
partition search problem, there are some issues that need
to be further clarified.
1. Uniform partitioning is expected to work well under
uniform traffic loads, but it will under utilize codes at
different traffic mixes. Consequently, partitioning must
take into account the prior knowledge about the expected
offered traffic distribution.
795
2. Due to the binary code tree structure, the coarse rate
values (powers of two times the basic rate), and the fixed
size of the tree, the partitioning may be also quite coarse.
To clarify this, let us denote by ni the number of rate iR
codes of the corresponding partition. Then the capacity
of the partition of rate iR codes can grow only with
increments of size iR: Thus, in a P tree with height h; the
following constraint must hold: i ni £ iR ¼ 2h21 R: In
other words, the feasible partitionings of the code tree are
limited to all the possible combinations of ni ’s that fulfill
the previous constraint.
3. Any partition should preserve the fairness property
ni . 0:
4. Once the traffic distribution and traffic level are
determined, the computation of the size of the
partitions should aim at optimizing a certain perform-
ance goal.
Under the previous assumptions, the blocking probability
for each traffic class can be obtained by the Erlang Bðni ; ai Þ
formula and the problem of selecting the most suitable
distribution of ni ’s is formulated as:
Problem 3.1. Given the number k of different rate classes,
the offered traffic ai of each class, i ¼ 1; 2; 4; …; 2k21 and
the height h of the code tree, find among the feasible
combinations of ni ’s, the optimal partitioning such that the
maximum blocking probability experienced by the different
traffic classes is minimized.
More formally : min{max{Bðni ; ai Þli ¼ 1; 2; 4; …; 2k21 }}
subject to:
X
ni £ iR ¼ 2h21 R ð1Þ
i
ni $ 1 ð2Þ
An exhaustive search procedure is very time consuming
for arbitrary values of the size h of the tree and the
number k of the different rate classes. Fortunately, since
both h and k can only take small values (e.g. h ¼ 9;
k , 9), the number of possible combinations of ni ’s is
limited and a sequential search to select the most suitable
is possible. We will refer to this exhaustive search that
attempts to minimize the maximum blocking probability,
as the min –max procedure.
Let us now compare the results of this min –max
procedure with a different scheme that allocates partition
sizes proportional to the offered traffic loads ai ’s. The
setting of this example, as well as the resulting partition-
ings are shown in Table 1. We consider k ¼ 5 different
rate classes, the size of the tree is h ¼ 9; while the offered
traffic distribution is selected so that the load proportional
partitioning approach results in a feasible combina-
tion ðn1 ; n2 ; n4 ; n8 ; n16 Þ ¼ ð96; 32; 12; 4; 1Þ: Our min –max
796 A.N. Rouskas et al. / Computer Communications 27 (2004) 792–800
Table 1
Load proportional partition vs min–max probability partition
iR R 2R
ai 52.97
P16
ni ¼ 256 £ ði £ ai Þ=ð i¼1 i £ ai Þ 96
Bðni ; ai Þð%Þ 3.19 £ 1026
ni 62
Bðni ; ai Þð%Þ 2.70
procedure, however, yields partition ðn1 ; n2 ; n4 ; n8 ; n16 Þ ¼
ð62; 25; 12; 6; 3Þ: For the maximum blocking probability,
the load proportional approach gives 35.56%, while min–
max yields only 2.70%. In addition to that, our proposal
results in a ratio for the maximum and minimum
probabilities of only 1.67.
Finally, we note that the min – max partitioning
procedure is quite fast in computing the optimal partition
sizes because of the small values of h and k: This property
is very useful in a time-varying environment, since a non-
uniform partition may work well for some offered traffic
intensities and distributions but not for others. Thus, great
traffic variations may require partition reconfigurations to
adapt to the new conditions and this is possible only if the
new partitions can be constructed in reasonable time
limits.
A similar formulation can be made so that the blocking
probabilities, experienced by each traffic class in the
resulting partitioning, is as close as possible. One straight-
forward way to identify this optimal combination of ni ’s is
to sequentially search among the set of all possible
combinations and choose the one that yields the minimum
standard deviation of the corresponding blocking probabil-
ities. Any such partition should preserve the fairness
property ni . 0: We expect this alternative partitioning to
be similar to the aforementioned min –max procedure. For
example, this method produces identical partitions if the
settings of the previous example are used. This partitioning,
however, does not bound the higher blocking probability
and is expected to produce in general slightly worse
partitions, in terms of call blocking, compared to the
min – max method.
A similar tree partitioning problem is discussed in Ref.
[5]. In this work, a target code is defined for each traffic class
and codes close to the target code are dynamically allocated
to calls of the same class. The tuning of target codes is not
considered, however, and this problem is left open. In other
words, the authors propose a code allocation scheme to
dynamically direct allocations to certain parts of the tree,
but they do not define what the target codes are, meaning
that they do not propose a method for defining the borders of
the partitions.
4R 8R 16R
17.66 6.62 2.21 0.55
32 12 4 1
6.49 £ 1022 2.01 11.74 35.56
25 12 6 3
2.14 2.01 1.78 1.62
4. Real-time assignment process
4.1. Code selection schemes at the call level
During system operation, and because of the statistical
nature of the arrival and departure processes, the occupied
codes will be randomly scattered across the code tree
(CS case) or within the common area of codes (HP
cases), if no countermeasures are taken and the real-time
allocation of codes is performed either randomly or even
in an ordered fashion. The obvious result will be
fragmented tree or common areas capacity and limited
appearances of higher free codes. Unfortunately, the
performance perceived by the higher rate calls is
significantly deteriorated. One way to alleviate this
phenomenon is by applying clever code selection schemes
at the arrival of a new call, when more than one codes of
the required rate are available. The problem of selecting
the best code, among several available candidates, at the
arrival of a new call or during the reassignment phase, is
studied in Refs. [14,15].
We can use any of the crowded-first or weighted code
selection schemes proposed in Refs. [14,15]. They both
yield nearly identical results in terms of code blocking
and code utilization. According to the second scheme,
which is used in the simulations below, the selected code
is the one, which blocks the least possible higher free
codes. For example, in the case of an incoming call of
rate 2R in the tree of Fig. 1, the candidate codes to
receive the new call are C21 ; C22 ; C24 and C26 : The
weighted selection scheme ignores C21 ; and C22 ; and
selects either C24 ; or C26 ; depending on the ordered
criterion used, leftmost or rightmost.
If such a scheme is applied, after each code
allocation the largest available code will be the largest
possible. Additionally, the scheme will not block higher
layer codes, unless there is no alternative, thus
alleviating the problem of scattered codes. Obviously,
such a scheme is required in the CS and HP code
reservation strategies only, since in the case of CP, each
traffic class has its own pool of codes to select from.
Thus, in this case there is no code blocking within each
partition.
 A.N. Rouskas et al. / Computer Communications 27 (2004) 792–800 797

4.2. Code reselection schemes at the call level

Additional improvement on the performance perceived

by the higher rate calls can be provided if code blocking is
completely vanished. Code reassignments at the arrival of
new calls can be used as a means to completely eliminate
the problem of code blocking. However, the price paid for
this improvement is the additional complexity introduced in
the signaling load, measured by the number of reassign-
ments. The work in Ref. [7] focuses on procedures that Fig. 3. Total blocking per scheme for rate distribution 40:30:20:10.
perform the minimum possible number of reassignments.
Reassignment schemes are necessary when the capacity arrive according to a Poisson process, while their call
of the tree is enough to carry the incoming call, but no code duration is exponentially distributed with equal mean. The
of the required rate is available. In such a case, a code of the possible rates for a new call are R, 2R; 4R and 8R; each with
required rate can become available, by transferring all the a different probability of appearance. A realistic traffic
ongoing calls at the subbranch of the code to some other pattern with lower rates being more probable ðR : 2R : 4R :
branches of the tree. Since the reassignment of a code may 8R ¼ 40 : 30 : 20 : 10Þ was used in our simulations. Under
involve further reassignments of codes in other branches, this non-uniform rate distribution, the min – max procedure
the only way to ensure that the minimum number of yielded ðn1 ; n2 ; n4 ; n8 Þ ¼ ð36; 28; 19; 11Þ as the optimal
reassignments be performed is to exhaustively search for the partitioning at total incoming traffic loads ranging from 80
best candidate code with a recursive procedure. However, to 120. To ensure the stability of the results, each simulation
this is not possible during call setup time and a heuristic run consisted of at least 100,000 incoming calls.
algorithm is required. The idea behind the code pattern We studied two performance measures, the blocking
search, mentioned in Ref. [7], is to select the code which has probability per traffic class and the utilization of codes,
the least number of occupied codes in its subbranch, and if which is defined as
more than one codes are still candidates, then the one with Total Utilization
the least occupied capacity in its subbranch is selected. X
Reassignments of lower rate codes are treated like new calls all accepted calls
ðcall rateÞ £ ðcall durationÞ
¼ ð3Þ
and may induce further reassignments. ð256RÞ £ ðtotal simulation timeÞ
In the CS strategy, we can use such a reassignment
As shown in Fig. 3, CS and CSR perform much better than
scheme at the arrival of new calls to completely eliminate
CP, HP3 and HP3R, especially as the load increases.
code blocking. We will refer to this strategy as the complete
However, this benefit is not proportionally reflected at the
sharing with reassignments (CSRs).
utilization of the code tree as we can see in Fig. 4. This
The situation is slightly different in the HP strategies,
behavior is natural since the results for blocking simply
where mixing of higher and lower layer codes is possible
count incoming blocked calls, irrespectively of the rate of
only within the overlapping code areas. For example in the
the calls. At light load, all the schemes utilize the codes
HP1 strategy, at the arrival of a iR call that finds the partition
equally, but as the load increases CSR achieves slightly
iR full, reassignments may occur in the following cases:
better utilization than the others. The schemes listed in
decreasing order of total code utilization are CSR, CS,
1. If a 2iR call is serviced by some 2iR code in the initial
HP3R, HP3 and CP.
partition of iR calls, and this 2iR call can be reassigned to
Although CSR and CS achieve higher total utilization,
the initial partition of 2iR calls.
this is not the case for each traffic class when examined
2. If the iR call can only be accommodated in the initial
separately. Lower rate codes have far better utilization than
partition of iR=2 calls by reassigning one or two iR=2
higher rate codes and that becomes more intense as the load
calls. This case may cause further reassignments.
increases.
We will refer to this strategy as the HP1 with
reassignments (HP1Rs). Similarly, we can define HP2
with reassignments (HP2R), and so on.

5. Numerical results and discussion

The performance of the proposed schemes is evaluated

through event driven simulation on a 9-layer OVSF code
tree. The capacity of the tree is 256R: Calls are assumed to Fig. 4. Total code utilization per scheme for rate distribution 40:30:20:10.
798 A.N. Rouskas et al. / Computer Communications 27 (2004) 792–800
Fig. 5. Blocking per rate for CS and rate distribution 40:30:20:10.
If we omit reassignments, when we compare the three
schemes CS, HP3 and CP, we see that the behavior against
different rate calls is varying significantly. From Fig. 5,
which shows the results for CS, it is clear that the
performance experienced by the different rate connections
is totally dissimilar. For medium to high loads, the calls of
rate 8R are literally excluded from service while the lower
rate calls are receiving unnecessarily very low blocking.
So, for traffic load 90 Erlangs, total blocking is about 3%
(Fig. 3) while the blocking of 8R calls only is over than 22%.
For greater loads these rate calls receive very poor
performance. This extremely different behavior is mainly
explained by the abrupt change of the code rates between
consecutive layers, rather than by code blocking.
In Figs. 6 and 7, we show blocking per rate class, when
HP3 and CP are employed. We see that at the total load of
80 Erlangs, HP3 presents similar performance compared to
that of CS, in the sense that the maximum blocking
probabilities in both schemes are equal. However, at higher
loads HP3 performs better than CS. So at the load of
90 Erlangs, the highest blocking probability has now
become 16%, 6% down, but of course none is getting
anything for nothing, and this gain is earned at the expense
of higher blocking of the other rates. Even better behavior,
with respect to the same optimization goal, is achieved
when CP is applied. At total loads of 80 Erlangs and higher,
CP clearly performs better than both CS and HP3. This
behavior is justified also by the fact that the partitions where
optimized for the total incoming loads ranging from 80 to
120. Again at 90 Erlangs, the highest blocking probability
has become lower than 14%, that is 8% down from the CS
Fig. 6. Blocking per rate for HP3 and rate distribution 40:30:20:10.
Fig. 7. Blocking per rate for CP and rate distribution 40:30:20:10.
case, but of course this further gain is also earned at the
expense of higher blocking of the other rates. Also, in the
CP scheme all traffic rates perceive very similar
performance.
When reassignments are used, code blocking is com-
pletely eliminated. Comparing Figs. 5 and 8, and Figs. 6
and 9 we see the code blocking removal significantly
improves fairness conditions both in CS and HP3. Thus,
with code reassignments, significant improvement in both
CS and HP3 is appearing at load of 60 Erlangs and higher.
When HP3R is compared to CSR, the improvement from the
application of the hybrid scheme on the maximum blocking
probability is starting to appear at loads higher than
90 Erlangs. But of course, again this benefit is also earned
at the expense of the reassignment cost during the call setup
process.
Finally, we kept the same code partitioning and tested
CP, HP and HPR under small variations of the incoming
traffic rate distributions. In Figs. 10 – 12, we show
Fig. 8. Blocking per rate for CSR and rate distribution 40:30:20:10.
Fig. 9. Blocking per rate for HP3R and rate distribution 40:30:20:10.
 A.N. Rouskas et al. / Computer Communications 27 (2004) 792–800
Fig. 10. Blocking per rate for CP and rate distribution 38:28:22:12.
Fig. 11. Blocking per rate for HP3 and rate distribution 38:28:22:12.
the performance of the CP, HP3 and HP3R schemes when
the partitioning of the code tree is not altered
ððn1 ; n2 ; n4 ; n8 Þ ¼ ð36; 28; 19; 11ÞÞ but the rate distribution
is changed to ðR : 2R : 4R : 8R ¼ 38 : 28 : 22 : 12Þ: Note
that under this traffic distribution, the min– max procedure
yielded ðn1 ; n2 ; n4 ; n8 Þ ¼ ð32; 24; 20; 12Þ: The results con-
firmed our intuition that HP and HPR schemes, are capable
of absorbing such small traffic fluctuations, while CP is less
immune, loses its fairness property and deviates from the
optimum. The surprising result was that HP3 performed
better than HP3R. This behavior is mainly explained by the
way reassignments are performed as explained in Section
4.2. According to the first case, calls that are allocated codes
from the initial partition of lower rate calls are returned to
their initial partition during their reassignment. Thus, these
reassignments attempt to preserve the initial partitioning,
even if this is not proper for the new rate distribution.
Fig. 12. Blocking per rate for HP3R and rate distribution 38:28:22:12.
799
6. Concluding remarks
In this paper, we examined the use of reservation
schemes in the management of codes at the forward link
of the WCDMA wireless interface. Like in every multi-
service network, calls with different rate requirements will
perceive very dissimilar system performance. This unfor-
tunate situation is exaggerated in this problem by both the
abrupt difference of the available code rates and the code
blocking phenomenon. We adapted partitioning schemes
to the problem at hand and formulated the problem of
determining the size of the partitions when the optimiz-
ation goal is to minimize the maximum of the blocking
probabilities. Thanks to the small size of the code tree and
the limited number of different rates available, the
procedure of finding the optimal partitioning is relatively
fast and can be used dynamically if the prevailing traffic
conditions significantly change. We showed that: (a) code
blocking elimination significantly improves the fairness
conditions in the CS and hybrid schemes; (b) there is a
threshold value for the incoming load, after which both
HP and CP both behave better than CS; (c) when
reassignments are used, this threshold value is shifted
towards higher traffic loads; and (d) HP without reassign-
ments absorb small variations in the traffic distribution
better than HPR and CP.
Future work will include the development of efficient
packet scheduling algorithms to exploit the different
characteristics of traffic sources expected in third generation
systems. The study must take into account the traffic classes,
as well as the definitions of dedicated and shared channels
proposed by 3GPP specifications.
References
[1] P. Bahl, I. Chlamtac, A. Farago, Resource assignment for integrated
services in wireless ATM networks, International Journal of
Communication Systems 11 (1998) 29–41.
[2] C. Skianis, D. Kouvatsos, Arbitrary open queueing networks with
server vacation periods and blocking, Annals of Operations Research
79 (1998) 143 –180.
[3] W.-T. Chen, Y.-P. Wu, H.-C. Hsiao, A novel code assignment scheme
for W-CDMA systems, in: Proceedings of 54th IEEE Vehicular
Technology Society Conference, vol. 2, 2001, pp. 1182–1186.
[4] A.C. Kam, T. Minn, K.-Y. Siu, Supporting rate guarantee and fair
access for bursty data traffic in W-CDMA, IEEE Journal on Selected
Areas in Communications 19 (11) (2001) 2121– 2130.
[5] M. Dell’Amico, M.L. Merani, F. Maffioli, A tree partitioning
dynamic policy for OVSF codes assignment in Wideband
CDMA, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (2004)
in press.
[6] R. Fantacci, S. Nannicini, Multiple access protocol for integration of
variable bit rate multimedia traffic in UMTS/IMT-2000 based on
wideband CDMA, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communi-
cations 18 (8) (2000) 1441–1454.
[7] T. Minn, K.-Y. Siu, Dynamic assignment of orthogonal variable-
spreading-factor codes in W-CDMA, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas
in Communications 18 (8) (2000) 1429–1440.
800 A.N. Rouskas et al. / Computer Communications 27 (2004) 792–800
[8] F. Adashi, M. Sawahashi, K. Okawa, Tree structured generation
of orthogonal spreading codes with different lengths for forward
link of DS-CDMA mobile radio, Electronic Letters 33 (1997)
27–28.
[9] 3GPP, Technical Specification TS 25.213 V5.0.0, Spreading and
Modulation (FDD), 2002–2003.
[10] R.-G. Cheng, P. Lin, OVSF code channel assignment for IMT-2000,
in: Proceedings of 51st IEEE Vehicular Technology Society
Conference, vol. 3, 2000, pp. 2188–2192.
[11] F. Shueh, W.-S.E. Chen, Code assignment for IMT-2000 on forward
radio link, in: Proceedings of 53rd IEEE Vehicular Technology
Society Conference, vol. 2, 2001, pp. 906–910.
[12] Y.H. Kim, C.K. Un, Analysis of bandwidth allocation strategies with
access restriction in broadband ISDN, IEEE Transactions on
Communications 41 (1993) 771–781.
[13] B. Kraimeche, M. Schwartz, Bandwidth allocation strategies in
wideband integrated networks, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in
Communications 4 (1986) 869 –878.
[14] Y.-C. Tseng, C.-M. Chao, S.-L. Wu, Code placement and replacement
strategies for wideband CDMA OVSF code tree management, in:
Proceedings of IEEE GLOBECOM, vol. 1, 2001, pp. 562–566.
[15] A. Rouskas, D. Skoutas, OVSF code assignment and reassignment at
the forward link of W-CDMA 3G systems, in: Proceedings of IEEE
PIMRC, 2002, pp. 2404–2408.