ON THE CAPACITY OF A CELLULAR CDMA SYSTEM

The use of spread spectrum or code division techniques for multiple access (CDMA) has long been debated. Certain advantages, such as multipath mitigation and interference suppression are generally accepted, but past comparisons of capacity with other multiple access techniques were not as favorable. This paper shows that, particularly for terrestrial cellular telephony, the interference suppression feature of CDMA can result in a many-fold increase in capacity over analog and even over competing digital techniques.