Cost effective improvement of EV-DO user experience through contention-based carrier addition

The individual user experience or throughput during a data session is key to wireless customer satisfaction. Insight into this value is not easily obtained. For example, "sample" experiences obtained through drive tests are moderately representative at best; moreover, coarse site measurements such as total data downloaded are insufficient. As the Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) standard provides contention-based access, user throughput can always be improved via carrier addition; however, the absence of specific measures, as well as a means of projecting improvements, makes targeted carrier addition difficult. Using available Alcatel-Lucent site ("service") measurements, we demonstrate a means for assessing individual user experience and projecting its improvement upon carrier addition. These results are employed within a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) network to implement carrier addition for targeted sites. We assess this strategy via analysis of pre- and post-add network field data, showing that carrier addition not only improved the user experience as anticipated, but unleashed pent-up data demand.