Congestion measures in DS-CDMA networks

In this paper, we investigate the notion of 'congestion' in spread spectrum wireless networks, such as those employing direct-sequence code-division multiple access. We find 'congestion' to be multidimensional in nature, but two features emerge: 1) when congestion occurs, transmit powers and cell site interference levels increase and 2) capacity constraints are approached. Among other measures, we focus on a particular measure, λ, which is immediately of interest, since λ < 1 is the condition for network feasibility. We relate λ both to the 'power warfare' that arises as 'capacity limits' are approached, and to the level of traffic in the network, where we consider traffic in regions ranging from local (single cells) to global (the whole network).