Traffic nonuniformity degrades the performance of CDMA cellular system
s. The authors present a new algorithm called the variable threshold s
oft handoff (VTSH) which reduces the performance degradation due to tr
affic nonuniformity in CDMA cellular systems. Unlike the conventional
fixed handoff thresholds, the proposed algorithm allows the handoff th
resholds (T_ADD and T_DROP) to vary dynamically according to the traff
ic density of each cell. This algorithm has been implemented by means
of computer simulation and the results show that VTSH improves the ove
rall CDMA system performance in terms of outage probability. The VTSH
algorithm can easily be applied to CDMA cellular systems without any m
odification.