Single-channel user-capacity calculations for self-organizing cellular systems

One important quantity in assessing the viability of local, autonomous, dynamic channel allocation for microcellular systems is user capacity, defined as the average number of users per channel per cell. Here, we determine the capacity for infinite linear and planar arrays of microcells using a very idealized environment. In particular, propagation and interference considerations are simply represented by the constraint that, if a channel is used in a given cell, it cannot be used in R-consecutive rings of cells around that cell. We investigate the elementary case where there is only a single channel available for use in the system. Using this representation, we compute the best and worst user capacities as well as the capacity achieved by random channel placement. While the environment under which these capacities are derived is highly idealized, the results are useful in two important ways. First, the best capacity and the random channel placement capacity we find here for single-channel, self-organized access are fundamental for computing the traffic characteristics of important multichannel dynamic channel allocation algorithms. Second, the random channel placement capacity is close enough to the best that can be achieved to suggest that local, autonomously implemented, dynamic channel allocation loses little capacity when compared with centrally administered fixed channel allocation.