TABLE OF CONTENTS This chapter provides the approach to estimating the capacity needed to support activity defined by the ANSI-41 standard for communications between mobile switching centers (MSCs) and between MSCs and other devices. We discuss capacity for inter-MSC handoffs and support for roaming, call processing, the short message service (SMS), and other switching activities. In some cases, we include activities that are outside the ANSI-41 specification. We note these occurrences. This chapter builds the basis in principles for the practical techniques we will offer in Parts 6 and 7.
We will call sectors that can have handoffs to another MSC border sectors. The base stations serving these sectors can initiate inter-MSC handoff activity. Handoffs from nonborder cells may involve signaling and communication, but all of this is among base stations and their common MSC.
Each handoff will require some of these elements: handoff measurement, handoff forward, handoff back, path minimization, and call release. Let us take a look at how many signaling messages are involved in each case
Handoff measurement requests are messages sent from the serving MSC to candidate MSCs. Each candidate MSC measures the signal from the user terminal. While every candidate MSC is sent a handoff measurement request, only those which detect adequate signal from the user terminal to accept a handoff respond with a measurement message. Once the serving MSC has selected a target MSC for a handoff, it may decide to do a handoff forward, a handoff back, or a path...
