Online OVSF code assignment with resource augmentation

Abstract

Orthogonal Variable Spreading Factor (OVSF) code assignment is a fundamental problem in Wideband Code-Division Multiple-Access (W-CDMA) systems, which play an important role in third generation mobile communications. In the OVSF problem, codes must be assigned to incoming code requests, with different data rate requirements, in such a way that they are mutually orthogonal with respect to an OVSF code tree. An OVSF code tree is a complete binary tree in which each node represents a code associated with the combined bandwidths of its two children. To be mutually orthogonal, each leaf-to-root path must contain at most one assigned code. In this paper, we focus on the online version of the OVSF code assignment problem, in the often-studied context of the single cell as well as in the more general context of the whole multi-cell cellular network (for which there are no known results). With the help of 1/8 and 11/8 extra bandwidth resources, we are able to give a 5-competitive algorithm in the single cell and the multicell context respectively, which means that the competitive ratio is a constant and not a function of the height of the OVSF tree and thereby improving upon past results. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.