  Techniques for channel allocation in cellular networks have been an area of
intense research interest for many years. An efficient channel allocation
scheme can significantly reduce call-blocking and calldropping probabilities.
Another important issue is to effectively manage the power requirements for
communication. An efficient power control strategy leads to reduced power
consumption and improved signal quality. In this paper, we present a novel
integer linear program (ILP) formulation that jointly optimizes channel
allocation and power control for incoming calls, based on the
carrier-to-interference ratio (CIR). In our approach we use a hybrid channel
assignment scheme, where an incoming call is admitted only if a suitable
channel is found such that the CIR of all ongoing calls on that channel, as
well as that of the new call, will be above a specified value. Our formulation
also guarantees that the overall power requirement for the selected channel
will be minimized as much as possible and that no ongoing calls will be dropped
as a result of admitting the new call. We have run simulations on a benchmark
49 cell environment with 70 channels to investigate the effect of different
parameters such as the desired CIR. The results indicate that our approach
leads to significant improvements over existing techniques.
