Medium Access Control and Radio Resource Management for Packet Data Services Over IS-136 Channels

Current North American Time Division Multiple Access systems support voice services and circuit data services at a rate limited to 9.6 kb/s. High rate packet data services are desirable for short bursty transactions as well as applications such as world wide web/internet access, electronic mail and file transfer. This paper provides a general overview of the proposed systems and describes flexible, high performance Medium Access Control (MAC) and Radio Resource Management procedures that have been adopted by the TIA for high rate packet data services over IS-136 TDMA channels. The 30 kHz spectrum usage, symbol rate and TDMA format (6 time slots every 40 ms) are maintained as in the IS-136 standard for compatibility with existing mobiles and in order to minimize impact on existing infrastructure. Assuming these constraints, a new TDMA Packet Data Channel (PDCH) is defined to carry both user data as well as information from other higher layer control and management entities.