Behavior and performance of power controlled IS-95 reverse-link under soft handoff

The power controlled IS-95 reverse-link is studied. It is observed that received signals from multiple links under soft handoff and power control are not independent but anticorrelated. The cause of the anticorrelation is investigated through analysis and simulation. It is shown that due to this anticorrelation, the required signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) to achieve a given frame error rate can be /spl sim/0.7 dB less than previously estimated based on the independence assumption. Such an observation also leads to a more accurate reverse-link capacity estimate. Finally, it is pointed out that by using a postselection power control configuration an additional capacity increase of up to 11% is obtained.