A fair protocol for fast resource assignment in wireless PCS networks

Abstract

Efficient sharing of communication resources is essential to PCS networks since the wireless bandwidth is limited. The Resource Auction Multiple Access (RAMA) protocol was recently proposed for fast resource assignment and handover in wireless PCS networks. The RAMA protocol assigns available communication resources (e.g., TDMA time slots or frequency channels) to subscribers one at a time using a collision resolution protocol based on subscriber ID's. However, the RAMA protocol encounters an unfairness problem; furthermore, performance results also indicate that it is inefficient at transmitting fixed-length subscriber ID's. Moreover, the emerging services such as teleconferencing have been presenting new challenges to dynamic-priority resource assignment. In this paper, we propose a modification to the RAMA protocol to improve its performance and resolve the unfairness problem. The proposed protocol also adopts dynamic priority assignment to improve the QOS for subscribers in overload environments.