— We describe an algorithm to estimate the future cell throughput of a multi-rate broadband wireless network based on previous measurements. The total throughput of a cell depends on the transmission rates used by the mobile nodes. Rather than predicting the individual movement and transmission rate of each node, we propose to use a longer measurement window to gauge the channel time usage by multiple nodes. It is found that the statistics of the average channel occupation time per frame follow a normal distribution. This offers a high degree of confidence in the prediction of the achievable cell throughput.