Virtual cellular network: a new wireless communications architecture with multiple access ports

A 'virtual cellular network' (VCN) is proposed to provide wireless random access for bursty multimedia traffic to a fixed backbone infrastructure. A VCN does not use a conventional cellular frequency reuse concept. In a VCN, each terminal sends packets using the entire system bandwidth while any nearby port can pick up the signal. Then, the ports relay the packets to the port server (PS) over a fixed (wired) network. Ports can be simple radio receivers as they do not have to support the same functionality as conventional cellular base stations. The performance is investigated in terms of probability of capture, throughput and delay. Both our analysis and simulation show that despite its simplicity this network has a larger user capacity than conventional cellular reuse patterns.