Bandwidth Expansion and Allocation in Wireless Communication Networks

Efficient management of bandwidth in wireless networks is a critical factor for a successful communication system. The provision of quality of service (QoS) guarantees in such networks is vital to the profitability of these networks and satisfaction of their users. In this paper, we present a model to expand the bandwidth capacity of a wireless network to meet user demand and to manage bandwidth efficiently based on bandwidth reservation and bandwidth adaptation in order to maximize net revenue while providing QoS guarantees. Our approach ensures zero call handoff dropping tolerance. The results of a simulation study show that the proposed method outperforms an existing method with respect to key performance measures such as call blocking and dropping probabilities and call time survivability. This survivability indicator is a new measure that is introduced for the first time in this paper. We also present a second tradeoff model to allow the network operator to control call dropping probability. The results of a second simulation study show that the network operator and users are better off if a zero call dropping policy is adopted as proposed in the first model.