Effect of cell residence time distribution on the performance of cellular mobile networks

Due to the existing disparity of assumptions on Cell Residence Time (CRT) statistics encountered in the literature so far, a study to quantify the effect of CRT distributions on cellular network performance is conducted. In a cellular network, the distribution of the cell residence time depends on many factors such as cell shape, cell radius, user mobility and the paths a user follows. We compare results for call blocking, hand-off failure and forced termination probability when the distribution for the cell residence time is Exponential, Erlang, Gamma, Uniform, Weibull and Deterministic. Cumulative distributions for the Channel Holding Time (CHT) are also provided. A comprehensive computer simulation confirms that in cellular mobile systems the call blocking probability is insensitive to the cell residence time distribution while the forced termination probability of a call varies with the cell residence time distribution. It is found that the effect of CRT distribution on the forced termination of a call vanishes as the CRT mean decreases.