Impact of backoff time on cellular IoT performance in massive communication environments

Abstract

This article evaluates the impact of backoff time through the Backoff Indicator’s (BI) configuration on the random-access channel (RACH) under different massive traffic scenarios considering network performance metrics such as the probability of successful access, the delay in access, and the average number of preamble transmissions. A discrete-event simulation model of the contention-based random-access procedure was developed using MATLAB software. Based on the results, an optimal range of BI values ​​was characterized for each scenario through different reliability conditions. It was observed that with a suitable configuration of the RACH parameters, the performance of the system network could reach a successful access probability more significant than 85% with a moderate increase in the access delay. It was concluded that dynamic modification of the backoff time could alleviate channel congestion in delay-tolerant applications with massive traffic.