The interest in the development of wireless high-speed data services is in response to the strong market demand for high-speed wireless Internet access. Current standards aim at delivering a peak data rate greater than 2Mbps on the forward link. Since data services and voice services are fundamentally different, new concepts were introduced in the design of the forward data channel. In addition, methods of evaluating the performance of a cellular CDMA system have to be revisited. This thesis proposes a method which can be used to find the forward link peak and average data rates, throughput and coverage of a cellular CDMA system which is capable of delivering high-speed wireless data. A summary of changes in design philosophy and recent advances in technologies which enable high-speed wireless data delivery are presented. The proposed method takes into account major aspects commonly found in the forward data channel and applies the generalized Shannon capacity formula for multi-element antenna (MEA) systems. The analysis focuses on the physical layer and is flexible enough to be adapted to various propagation environments, antenna configurations, multicode allocations, user distributions and cell site configurations. Sample numerical results for various multicode allocations are shown using a system model with two-tier interfering cells with one transmit antenna and two receive antennas operating under a frequency selective slow fading channel with propagation environment described by the Recommendation ITU-R M. 1225 indoor office, outdoor to indoor and pedestrian and vehicular test environments. Different transmit / receive antenna configurations and multicode allocations and their impact on the average data rate is also explored.

The interest in the development of wireless high-speed data services is in response to the strong market demand for high-speed wireless Internet access. Current standards aim at delivering a peak data rate greater than 2Mbps on the forward link. Since data services and voice services are fundamentally different, new concepts were introduced in the design of the forward data channel. In addition, methods of evaluating the performance of a cellular CDMA system have to be revisited. This thesis proposes a method which can be used to find the forward link peak and average data rates, throughput and coverage of a cellular CDMA system which is capable of delivering high-speed wireless data. A summary of changes in design philosophy and recent advances in technologies which enable high-speed wireless data delivery are presented. The proposed method takes into account major aspects commonly found in the forward data channel and applies the generalized Shannon capacity formula for multi-element antenna (MEA) systems. The analysis focuses on the physical layer and is flexible enough to be adapted to various propagation environments, antenna configurations, multicode allocations, user distributions and cell site configurations. Sample numerical results for various multicode allocations are shown using a system model with two-tier interfering cells with one transmit antenna and two receive antennas operating under a frequency selective slow fading channel with propagation environment described by the Recommendation ITU-R M. 1225 indoor office, outdoor to indoor and pedestrian and vehicular test environments. Different transmit / receive antenna configurations and multicode allocations and their impact on the average data rate is also explored.