Fair scheduling for spectrally efficient multi-service wireless data provisioning

Abstract

Efficient wireless packet data access is possible by exploiting multi-user diversity. This is done by using an opportunistic multiple access system that allocates system resources to one user at a time while using adaptive modulation and coding. Based on this outcome, recently the IS-856 system was developed. A scheduling algorithm provides resource allocation in the IS-856 system, and its proper design is perhaps one of the most crucial aspects ensuring good system performance. We present a number of such algorithms in this paper, two of which are new, and provide a comparative performance evaluation. The proposed algorithms appear to have the best overall performance of achieving high system throughputs without diverging much from the optimal latency performance. We then show that the IS-856 system can easily be adjusted to provide a multitude of services, each with different QoS requirements. Extensive performance evaluations show that good system performance can be maintained in the multi-service scenario. The paper also presents means of providing multicast service provisioning in the IS-856 system.