Call request buffering in a PCS network

In a personal communication services (PCS) network, a set of channels is assigned to every cell. When a phone call arrives, it consumes a channel until the end of the conversation. If no channel is available, the call is dropped. In many cases, channels may return shortly after a call is dropped. Thus, if some buffering mechanism is introduced to the channel allocation algorithm, a cell may accommodate more phone calls. This is referred to as call request buffering. This paper proposes both analytical and simulation models to study the impact of two call request buffering schemes. Our results indicate the potential to greatly improve network performance (i.e., reducing the call blocking probability) by increasing the call-setup period by a reasonably small amount. For the offered load engineered at 1% blocking probability, call request buffering carries 5%-50% more load compared with the system without buffering.