High speed packet access (HSPA) is a new technology based on the popular wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA). HSPA is even better than the earlier WCDMA-UMTS (universal mobile telecommunications system). It provides higher data rates and lower latency (for both uplink and downlink). In this paper, the authors point out the drawbacks of the existing scheduling framework. The current scheduling information (SI) system is unaware of the following factors: “the delay sensitivity of each traffic flow, as well as the actual delay that the buffered data [has] experienced.” Therefore, the authors design a delay aware channel prioritization (DACP) criterion, which they claim is optimized for real-time services and applications.

The proposed DACP-based packet scheduler (DACP-S) mainly consists of two activities: serving the priority flows and sharing the remaining capacity. DACP-S dynamically allocates resources among the sessions in the system and considers the absolute delay sensitivity of each flow. As the queueing delay of the flow’s buffer accumulates, it triggers “a proportional increase in the [corresponding] serving priority.” The authors compare the performance of the proposed DACP-S scheduler with rate-based and delay-driven schedulers in the OPNET network simulation tool. DACP-S nimbly handles data streams with traffic flow bursts and performs delay reduction and implementation of quality of service (QoS) differentiation.

Overall, this paper proposes some design modifications for delay and QoS performance in HSPA networks. It is for readers interested in HSPA networks. However, it lacks some details and visual illustrations that could help explain the concept much more effectively. In addition, including an evaluation of the proposed methodology in a real HSPA network would have been effective.