3G System Network Simulation Approaches and Application Areas

Abstract

As the demand for mobile communication services still increases, not only new and enhanced radio interface technologies are required, but also tools to support the operators with the capabilities for an efficient network planning and optimization process. Over the last years it turned out that these tools must consider more and more system aspects since pure modeling of the radio channel is no longer sufficient. Three different simulation approaches for evaluating the performance of WCDMA based 3G networks in terms of capacity and service coverage are presented in this article. The basic ideas and the respective output facilities of a static system analysis, a Monte-Carlo based method, and a full dynamic system simulation are presented and the corresponding models are explained. While static simulations may be suited well for a fast roll-out planning in larger areas with several hundreds of cells, full dynamic network simulations, on the other hand, may be applied to analyze smaller parts of an existing network in a detailed manner considering also user experienced quality of service aspects. All approaches can work with different propagation models to determine the radio channel characteristics depending on the existing environment..