Modeling Cell Placement and Coverage for Heterogeneous 3G Services

Locating cells for 3G services is a complex process due to the heterogeneity of service requirements. These requirements considerably affect the service coverage and resource utilisation of the network. This is a complex issue to model in WCDMA networks due to the dynamic nature of power control and the dependency between coverage and load. In this work we consider the issue of evaluating user service coverage and resource utilisation, or load that a trial candidate network design of cells can sustain. We investigate the sensitivity of two fundamental variables associated with snapshot evaluation – priorities for admission and the mix of requested services. This is conducted for the downlink scenario using a highly efficient offline evaluation technique that avoids recourse to lengthy simulation of online system power control. The results expose the significant influence that the variables have on the resultant evaluation of a candidate network design using a single traffic snapshot. This is important knowledge for network planning.