Analyzing the Performance of Data Users in Packet Switched Wireless Systems with Prioritized Voice Traffic

The integration of wireless telephony and data services in 3G and 4G wireless systems that use packet-switched air interfaces poses new challenges in the management of network resources. Although highly compressed voice traffic is given priority over data traffic, scheduling algorithms which exploit multiuser diversity have been shown to significantly improve the data throughput . In this paper, we quantify the effect of prioritized voice traffic on the performance of data users in the system using a mix of analysis and simulation. We analytically characterize the scheduled rate, delay and packet service times for data in the presence of prioritized voice traffic by using a general scheduling metric that incorporates a measure of the user’s channel quality in addition to a delay constraint. The results provide important tools for cellular network operators to evaluate system performance and provision resources for traffic with varying Quality of Service(QoS) requirements.