HSDPA flow level performance: The impact of key system and traffic aspects

We present a flow-level performance evaluation for a UMTS/HSDPA network. The results provide thorough insights into the performance impact of a number of key system, environment and traffic aspects, e.g. terminal location, the presence of intercellular interference, the intrinsic feedback delay in the channel quality indications, soft combining of retransmissions and the applied packet scheduling scheme. The contribution of the identified key aspects in the experienced service quality and spatial fairness is assessed by evaluating gradually more 'complete' scenarios. Copyright 2004 ACM