Network planning

• In the mobile part - a classic solution:

• High power transmitter covering a large (entire) system operation range
• High power output
• Large end terminals (antenna, battery sizes, ...)
• Lower fault tolerance
• Low system capacity

• Example 1: Radio - 1 channel (or several channels) and broadcast

• Example 2: Dispatch/tranking systems, CB radio (long antennas)
 Network planning
• Tranking systems
• Communications between employees of the same company
• Architecture: dispatch center, base stations (one or several), terminals
• Open communication channel (everyone uses the same channel, listens and
turns on at the right time, no channel access control mechanisms)
• Large range (several dozen kilometers)
• Applications: taxi companies, railway stations, police, fire brigade, other
services
Network planning
• Practically used solution (mobile part)
• Division of the area into smaller parts, so-called cells
• Possibility of using the same frequencies in many cells, respectively spaced
apart (Frequency reuse)
• Advantage - increasing system capacity (more utility channels)
• Risk of interference from the same frequencies (noise)
 Network planning
• Network design: planning and dimensioning
• Network planning - radio coverage areas
• Good audibility zone
• Interference zone for other systems
• Negligible signal level zone

• Issues (to be considered):

• Size of the zones
• Noise level (interference)
• Useful signal level (signal to noise ratio)
 Network planning
• Arrangement of base stations
• The need for continuity of coverage area
• Arranging base stations with different frequencies
• Avoiding Common Channel Interference
The same frequency base stations BTS1 i BTS2 Additional base stations BTS3 i BTS4
with other frequency
Invalid placement

Good placement
 Network planning
• The shape of cells:
• ideally the shape of a cell is circular (with radius R),
• In real life the shape of cells depends on the power of the received signal (the
set of points with the same power of the received signal demarks the
boundary of a cell),
• Using a circle for modelling and planning the cellular networks raises some
problems related to cell overlaping,
• A hexagonal shape is the closest to a circle shape but avoids the problem of
cell overlaping (it is well suited for modelling the cellular network coverage),

Theoretical circular shape Hexagonal cell shape used for

cellular network planning
 Network planning
⚫ Network planning – distribution of posesed frequencies between the cells in a
cluster
⚫ Cluster – a group of cells that use (are assigned) a set of unique frequencies
⚫ On the pictures below:
⚫ different clusters are marked with different colors,
⚫ the numbers indicate frequencies.

Cluster size = 3 Cluster size = 10

 Network design- an example
• Cluster sizes: N = 3, 4, 7, 12.

• Capacity of the system N=4 – example:

• We have a 50 MHz band for the GSM system, in which each frequency channel takes
200kHz, but using TDMA multiplication we have 8 utility channels on each frequency
channel. How many channels can be allocated to a single cell in each case N = 3,4,7, 12.
How many conversations can be made in the system with N = 4?
• Solution: Number of frequency channels: 50 MHz / 0.2 MHz = 250. For N = 4 we have k =
250/4 = 62.5 channels per cell. The number of simultaneous conversations is equal to the
number of usable channels, i.e. 62.5x8 = 500.
• Question: why N can't be as small as possible?
 Network planning
• Planning the cluster size:
• The cluster size can’t be of any value; only the values fulfilling some
dependencies might be used,
• Each hexagonal cell has exactly 6 neighbours (adjacent cells),
• The requirement that any 2 identical cells (i.e. with the same frequency) were
separated by at least one additional cell makes the cluster size takes only the
values determined by the following formula:

i, j – integers describing the distance

between any 2 the same cells
 Network planning
• Determining the cluster size:
• Distance D - the distance a given frequency might be used again is called
„Frequency reuse factor” – it is the distance between two identical (wih the
same frequency) cells
• Distance D is given by:

• The formula for D is obtained by solving triangle with cosine theorem

 Network planning
• Planning the sizes of the clusters - examples of different size clusters:
 Network planning
• Network planning - distribution of posesed frequencies between the cells
in a cluster
• Cluster – a group of cells that use (are assigned) a set of unique frequencies
• Existing restrictions:
• For the correct transmission the appropriate signal to noise ratio is required
• The noise mostly comes from the interferences
• Types of interferences :
• Common channel interferences – the same frequency from other cell (N
should be as large as possible)
• Adjacent channel interferences – the adjacent frequency in bandwidth
(other cell from the same cluster)
• Finite and constant number of channels (N x number of channels in a cell =
const.)
• The requirements regarding the system capacity (N should be as low as possible)
 Designing the network
• Common Channel Interferences:
• Interferences are generated by base stations from other cells operating on the
same frequency channels.
• Using previous propagation models (for omni-directional antennas) we get:
where i0 is the number of neighboring base stations in the immediate vicinity.

Example: System 1G (AMPS):

• The required S / I ratio is 18 dB. What is the minimum N value ?
• Solution: S/I = 18 dB that is 1018/10 = 101.8 = 63.1. Using above formula we obtain:
that gives:

• For n=3 we get Nmin=17.4 and for n=4 we get Nmin=6.5.