EDX Software Reference Manual Network Design Module: WCDMA & UMTS Systems

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems Reference Manual Table of Contents

WCDMA & UMTS Systems Table of Contents

1. Introduction ......................................................................... NDM-UMTS 1-1
1.1. 1.2.
1.2.1. 1.2.2. 1.2.3. 1.2.4.

What is the WCDMA & UMTS Systems Section of Network Design Module? ..... NDM-UMTS 1-1 NDM-UMTS Manual Organization ................................................................................ NDM-UMTS 1-2
3G Cellular System Types...................................................................................................................... NDM-UMTS 1-2 3G Cellular System Design .................................................................................................................... NDM-UMTS 1-2 3G Cellular System Studies.................................................................................................................... NDM-UMTS 1-2 Static Monte Carlo Analysis .................................................................................................................. NDM-UMTS 1-3

1.3. 1.4. 1.5.

Installing the Network Design Module: WCDMA & UMTS Systems ...................... NDM-UMTS 1-3 Starting a 3G Cellular Network Design .......................................................................... NDM-UMTS 1-3 Accessing the Network Design Module: WCDMA & UMTS Systems Functions.. NDM-UMTS 1-4

2. System Types and Setup ..................................................... NDM-UMTS 2-1

2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4. 2.5. System Types ....................................................................................................................... NDM-UMTS 2-2 Setting the System Type/Service Area ............................................................................ NDM-UMTS 2-1 Basic System Parameters ................................................................................................... NDM-UMTS 2-3 Channel Plan Template Files ............................................................................................ NDM-UMTS 2-6 System Service Area Boundary File ................................................................................. NDM-UMTS 2-8

3. System Design ..................................................................... NDM-UMTS 3-1

3.1. 3.2.
3.1.1.

System Layout ..................................................................................................................... NDM-UMTS 3-1

Doing a System Layout .......................................................................................................................... NDM-UMTS 3-2

3.2.1. 3.2.2. 3.2.3. 3.3.1. 3.3.2. 3.3.3. 3.3.4.

Cell Site Parameters............................................................................................................ NDM-UMTS 3-3

CDMA Channels .................................................................................................................................... NDM-UMTS 3-4 CDMA Traffic ......................................................................................................................................... NDM-UMTS 3-4 Propagation Models................................................................................................................................ NDM-UMTS 3-5

3.3.

Traffic Loading ................................................................................................................... NDM-UMTS 3-6

Circuit-Switched and Packet-Switched Networks.............................................................................. NDM-UMTS 3-6 Packet-Switched Traffic Density .......................................................................................................... NDM-UMTS 3-8 Packet-Switched Traffic Definitions .................................................................................................... NDM-UMTS 3-8 Doing a Traffic Loading Study ............................................................................................................. NDM-UMTS 3-9

3.4. 3.5. 4.1. 4.2. 4.3.

3.4.1. 3.4.2.

Other Design Functions ..................................................................................................NDM-UMTS 3-10

CDMA Scrambling Code Offset Planning ....................................................................................... NDM-UMTS 3-10 Neighbor Lists ....................................................................................................................................... NDM-UMTS 3-11

References..........................................................................................................................NDM-UMTS 3-13 Selecting a 3G Cellular System Study .............................................................................. NDM-UMTS 4-1 Specialized 3G Cellular Study Formulas ......................................................................... NDM-UMTS 4-4 References......................................................................................................................... ...NDM-UMTS 4-4

4. 3G System Studies .............................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

5. Static Monte Carlo Analysis ................................................ NDM-UMTS 5-1

5.1. 5.2. Setting Up the Static Monte Carlo Analysis ................................................................... NDM-UMTS 5-2 Running a Static Monte Carlo Analysis .......................................................................... NDM-UMTS 5-3

EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems Reference Manual Table of Contents

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems Introduction

NDM-UMTS 1-1

1. Introduction
1.1. What is the WCDMA & UMTS Systems Section of Network Design Module?
The Network Design Module is an optional EDX software module connected to EDX SignalPro. The WCDMA & UMTS Systems Section of the Network Design Module (NDM-UMTS) gives you the advanced, specialized system engineering capabilities needed to layout, design, re-configure, and optimize 3G UMTS W-CDMA systems. The NDM-UMTS contains special data entry dialog boxes in which you can specify all the details of your system and perform a number of studies to show how the system will perform under different parameter configurations. Each individual system configuration or scenario can be saved, along with its collection of system design maps, to allow rapid comparison and assessment of the relative merits of different configurations. This functionality is especially useful for modern adaptive systems where different system configurations with different loading requirements and channel plans may be employed throughout the day to optimize the system for current traffic distributions. The NDM-UMTS is designed to do studies for UMTS W-CDMA systems. These systems types are generally classified as 3G systems (the G indicating generation). A separate part of the Network Design Module available from EDX specializes in 1G/2G/2.5G and 4G LTE & WiMAXsystems. In performing its tasks, this module makes use of many basic signal level calculation techniques that are accessed through EDX SignalPro. A cell site sector (whether omni-directional or sectorized), is analogous to a transmitter site in EDX SignalPro. To calculate a cellular system study map, the program will extract terrain, calculate signal levels, and build a composite area study grid in the same way it does in the main program for a transmitter site (see Chapter 8 in the Reference Manual). It will create .trn, .rad, and .tht files for each cell sector just as it did for each transmitter site. It is helpful to review Chapter 8 of the Reference Manual for more background on this process. This module also relies on the database settings that are made in the main EDX SignalPro program. Setting up terrain, land use (clutter), traffic, and demographic databases that are used by the NDM-UMTS is done on the Databases menu from the Main Map menu. You can also use the extensive mapping and drawing capabilities in EDX SignalPro to create very detailed and informative base maps for your 3G system studies. Detailed base maps are an important tool for determining where cell sites may be located, judging where system capacity may be insufficient (or under-utilized), and gauging how your system needs to evolve to accommodate changing traffic patterns. Drawing maps of traffic (data rate or call density) is a fundamental part of what EDX SignalPros mapping capabilities can do (see Chapter 7 in the Reference Manual).

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NDM-UMTS 1-2

EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems Introduction Because the NDM-UMTS offers specialized add-on capabilities, it is important to be fluent with the basic operation and functions of EDX SignalPro before attempting to use this module.

1.2. NDM-UMTS Manual Organization

This manual is organized into six chapters. Chapter 1 is an introduction, with the following chapters dealing with different aspects of 3G cellular systems design and analysis, in that order.

1.2.1. 3G Cellular System Types

Chapter 2 on 3G cellular system types provides information on setting basic parameters for your system, including system type, the frequency range that the system is permitted to use and system parameters which apply to the overall system instead of individual cell sectors. This chapter also tells you how to set up the files that describe the system service and the channel plan templates that you will use.

1.2.2. 3G Cellular System Design

Chapter 3 covers system design. For new systems being deployed in un-served areas, or as overlays to existing earlier-generation systems, the system layout function gives you a good initial system geographical design. Once your nominal system layout is done, you can easily re-locate cells, add new cells, or delete cells as needed. This is the core information for most cellular systems. You can specify site locations, power levels, directional antennas, and other site/sector information here. For each sector you can even specify sector-specific custom propagation models using a Hata-type equation, an EDX physical model, or a multi-breakpoint slope-intercept type model. The point-slope model can be built automatically from measurement (drive-test) data. Chapter 3 also describes the important functions for traffic loading. The performance of a 3G system depends not only on the quantity of mobiles using the system, but the type of packet-switched service each is using and the particular statistical parameters that describe the distribution and speed of packet transmissions on the uplink and the downlink. With the NDM-UMTS, you can completely describe all the particulars for such distributions.

1.2.3. 3G Cellular System Studies

Chapter 4 describes the set of special system area studies in addition to the basic area studies available in EDX SignalPro. These studies include handoff analysis, first and second most likely server, available uplink and downlink data rates, and several other special CDMA studies. Chapter 4 describes how to select, perform, and display maps of these studies. The specific equations used for calculating the results shown in these studies are also included here. As mentioned above, a collection of study maps can be developed for each of several system configurations within a project.

1.2.4. Static Monte Carlo Analysis

Chapter 5 describes Monte Carlo analysis for CDMA systems. CDMA systems are fundamentally dependent on system loading. System loading is the number, location and service requirements of the mobile units that are operating in the

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems Introduction system. The most effective way to analyze system loading, and hence, system performance, is to use a so-called Monte Carlo analysis in which the system is loaded with a randomly dispersed set of mobile units. For each distribution of mobiles, the mobiles power levels and servers are calculated, as they would be in a real system. As system loading increases, eventually new mobiles cannot be added to the system due to uplink interference from mobiles already in the system, or limitations on downlink available traffic channel elements (TCEs) or Eb/No, among other things. The rate at which mobiles are being rejected or cut off are described as blocking or disconnect rates a quality of service, or QoS, performance measure. When the system is loaded to this point, the system capacity has been reached. By running several such Monte Carlo simulation iterations, a statistically significant sample can be generated that generally characterizes system capacity and performance.

NDM-UMTS 1-3

1.3. Installing the Network Design Module: WCDMA & UMTS Systems
The capabilities of this module are automatically installed when you install EDX SignalPro (with the Network Design Module: WCDMA & UMTS Systems) as described in Chapter 1 of the Reference Manual. There is no separate installation to be done. The module code is built into the program and the hardware key you receive contains the proper authorization codes to activate the Network Design Module: WCDMA & UMTS Systems. To verify that the module is properly installed, select Help/About on the EDX SignalPro main menu. It will indicate whether or not the module is installed.

1.4. Starting a 3G Cellular Network Design

The standard EDX SignalPro program stores information for a study in the project directory. This directory contains all the parameters and other information needed to completely reproduce a study map on your screen when you open a selected project. The project includes the specific parameters for each of your transmitter sites/sectors, or links, as well as information about the databases, propagation models, and base map features. Projects are explained in Chapter 3 of the Reference Manual. The material in this NDM-UMTS manual is presented assuming you have already read the Users Guide and the Reference Manual that are included with your software. If you have not done so, please review these materials before moving on to the functions described in the following chapters.

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems Introduction

1.5. Accessing the Network Design Module: WCDMA & UMTS Systems Functions
If you have started a new project, or opened an existing one, the Network Design Module: WCDMA & UMTS Systems functions will be available to you. To access Network Design Module: WCDMA & UMTS Systems, select the Network Design/Analysis item on the main EDX SignalPro menu, then select WCDMA and UMTS systems. A sub-menu will appear showing the various elements provided by the module for this system type. Each element is explained in the following chapters of this module manual.

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems - System Types and Setup

NDM-UMTS 2-1

2. System Types and Setup

2.1. System Types
The Network Design Module: WCDMA & UMTS Systems (NDM-UMTS) currently supports the following 3G CDMA system types:
1. W-CDMA UMTS 3GPP Release 99. 2. Custom (allows arbitrary settings for band edges, carrier spacing, and number of voice channels per carrier).

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems - System Types and Setup

2.2. Setting the System Type/Service Area

When you select System type/Service area from the WCDMA and UMTS systems menu, you will be presented with a dialog box in which you select the system type and the frequency band over which it is allowed to operate. The first entry on this dialog box lets you set the system name. You set the name, and specify the parameters, for up to two cellular systems. The system name will appear on the Transmitter Site Details dialog box, so it is most helpful to choose a name that clearly identifies your system. See Chapter 9.

1996-2012, EDX Wireless - All rights reserved.

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems - System Types and Setup In general, the upper and lower frequency band edges are specified by the administrative rules for the particular country of operation. Those values should be entered here after the system type is selected. The carrier frequency spacing is a fixed function of the system type and cannot be changed. Beneath the system type selections, you can select the frequency band. This actually allows you to set up any technology to operate in any frequency band, although such operation may not be authorized by local spectrum regulation authorities. For the selected frequency band, the program will show you the standard frequency band edges. The lower band edge will be used along with the technology carrier spacing to determine the real operating frequencies for channels assigned to base stations. Depending on the system type and frequency band you select, the number of available channels is derived. For example, if an LTE system with a single carrier was being added or overlaid on an existing W-CDMA/UMTS system, you could indicate that only a single channel was in use by setting the frequency band limits accordingly. If the frequency band you require is not listed as standard band, you can select Custom and enter your own lower and upper frequency band edges. In this way, you can set up your 3G cellular system to utilize essentially any frequency band. In the next entry, you can set the channel plan template for your system. The channel plan templates are described in the following section.

NDM-UMTS 2-3

2.3. Basic System Parameters

W-CDMA systems are somewhat complicated to design because they adapt the number of traffic channels, and the power assigned to those channels, at each cell sector as a function of call demand. To calculate useful system performance maps, several parameters are required. These parameters can be specified by clicking on the Basic System Parameter button on the Define System and Service Area dialog box that will open a new dialog box in which to set these parameters. The current 3G CDMA systems that will be deployed will likely be one of two types: W-CDMA or CDMA2000. Even though many of the system parameters are fixed by definition (such as chip rate), most of the significant parameters that are available for modification are in this dialog box.
1. CDMA Chip rate. This is set to 3.84 Mchips for W-CDMA systems. 2. Frequency Re-use Factor. This is a measure of the amount of interference received from neighboring or adjacent cells that contribute noise to the desired uplink signal reception. A typical value used here is 30 to 45%. 3. Total channel codes available. This is set to whatever number is relevant for the installed system channel cards.

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems - System Types and Setup

4. Maximum Base Station ERP per TCE (Traffic Channel Element). The overall power assigned to traffic channels for a given base station is utilized for the traffic channels that are currently active. For low load conditions (few active mobiles), the base station will divide power among those active channels, causing the power per TCE to rise. This factor sets a cap on how much power will be used for a TCE. A typical value here is 50%. 5. Percent Power in the Pilot Channel. The pilot channel in a CDMA system is used to maintain synchronization and to make decisions about handoff (see Chapter 4). The amount of the total cell or sector power assigned to this channel is typically 20%. 6. Percent Power in the Traffic Channel. This is the total percentage power assigned to all traffic channels, and thus divided among the traffic channels. This is typically set at 75%. Note that the actual power assigned to an individual traffic channel will vary depending on the number of active channels in the sector and automatic power control (APC). 7. Percent Power in the Sync and Paging Channels. The remaining power from the cell or sector is allocated to the paging and sync channels. The sum of the percentages from the pilot, traffic, sync and paging channels must add up to 100%.

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems - System Types and Setup

NDM-UMTS 2-5

8. Handoff Initiate (add) and Drop Thresholds. Also called T_add and T_drop. These are values of Ec/I0 that are used to determine which base stations or sectors are potential handoff candidates for a particular mobile (see Chapter 4). CDMA has the ability to perform soft handoff or make-before-break call switching in which a mobile is actually in communication with more than one base station at a time. The system in essence selects the best version of the received signal at any given time, resulting in a kind of macroscopic space diversity system. EDX SignalPro with the Network Design Module: WCDMA & UMTS Systems simultaneously assesses the pilot signals (Ec/I0) from the base stations or sectors and determines up to three which are handoff candidates- one of which is currently the server for this mobile (if indeed any service is provided). The WCDMA handoff map described in Chapter 4 can display various combinations of these handoffs including hard handoff, soft handoff, softer handoff, soft+softer handoff, 3-way, 4-way, 5-way, 6-way soft handoff. See Chapter 4 for definitions. 9. Orthogonality Factor. For downlink Eb/No calculations, the degree of interference from other downlink signals coming from the home sector depends on the amount of multipath that the signals experience. With no multipath, the rejection of other downlink signals is perfect because they use orthogonal codes. This corresponds to a orthogonality factor of 1.0. With multipath, the rejection is not perfect and the Eb/No ratio is degraded. Using an orthogonality factor less than 1.0 is an approximate way of modeling this effect. 10. Imperfect APC Factor. APC (Automatic Power Control) is an essential part of any CDMA system. It allows the base station, or sector, to automatically adjust the power output of a mobile station so that all the mobiles which are currently in communication with that sector have the same received signal power at the base station. In this way no received mobile signal is a dominate noise component when trying to receive another mobile signal. However, the APC has a difficult task because it must adjust for the relative path loss differences for the propagation path from the base to the mobile, including both slow and fast fading effects. APC adjustments can be made up to 800 times a second, with a dynamic range of 70 dB or more. Because achieving this result perfectly is a challenge for current hardware, the W-CDMA parameter dialog box provides for entering a factor that can account for imperfect power control. The net effect of this factor is to raise the noise level on any traffic channel (reduce Eb/I0) and ultimately, the capacity of the system. See Chapter 4. A value of 1.0 indicates perfect APC. 11. Soft handoff gain. When a mobile is in soft handoff, it is actually communicating with more than one base station. The uplink signals received at the multiple base stations are compared and the best of those signals is used. This capability in W-CDMA essentially provides macro-diversity gain that benefits the performance of the uplink. The degree of benefit is termed soft-hand gain. A typical value used here is 3 dB.

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems - System Types and Setup

12. PN PILOT_INC parameter. This parameter is used to set the number of PN offset codes that are available in the system. The number of codes is equal to 512 divided by this parameter. The number of PN codes is relevant to the PN offset assignment process described later in this manual. 13. SRCH_WIN_A. This parameter is the width in chips of the search window for pilot acquisition. It affects the possibility of PN offset interference from cell sites using the same PN offset code as the home cell site but delayed in time. A typical value is 16 chips. 14. Required C/I ratio for Pilot rejection. This value is also used for assessing the possibility of pilot PN offset interference. When a PN offset conflict study is done, or PN offset sequences assigned, the program uses this value along with the search window, predicted received C/I ratios and time delay due to cell site location from the mobile to determine whether there is a potential for PN offset conflicts. A typical value here is 27 dB.

Once you have made the desired selections on the CDMA parameter dialog box, click OK and the changes will be incorporated in your CDMA system studies. There is a combo-box that allows the user to select whether they wish to use measured or predicted voice or data traffic for the channel dimensioning. If the measured or predicted data traffic is chosen, the user has the option of specifying the traffic capacity in kBPS for the W-CDMA channel. When you have made all your desired changes on the 3G UMTS System Type/Service Area dialog boxes, you are ready to move on to other system specifications, in particular, the base station or cell site details.

2.4. Channel Plan Template Files

The channel assignments are usually governed by a channel plan of some kind in which channels are grouped together to avoid co-channel and adjacent channel interference conflicts. EDX software comes equipped with a number of channel plan template files for the most widely used system types and frequency re-use strategies. For CDMA systems, frequency planning per-se is not done because it is assumed that every CDMA carrier can be re-used on every cell sector. However, when considering systems with mixed technologies, it is useful to be able to specify the carrier frequencies being used by your 3G CDMA system. For this purpose, there is an entry where you can specify the name of the channel plan template file. The format of this file is described here.

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NDM-UMTS 2-7

version 3 cpt EDX channel plan template file total number of channels listed = 24 0001,D,27700.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0201,QPSK 0002,D,27730.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0202,QPSK 0003,D,27760.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0203,QPSK 0004,D,27790.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0204,QPSK 0005,D,27820.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0205,QPSK 0006,D,27850.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0206,QPSK 0007,D,27880.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0207,QPSK 0008,D,27910.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0208,QPSK 0009,U,28200.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0209,QPSK 0010,U,28230.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0210,QPSK 0011,U,28260.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0211,QPSK 0012,U,28290.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0212,QPSK 0013,U,28320.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0213,QPSK 0014,U,28350.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0214,QPSK 0015,U,28380.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0215,QPSK 0016,U,28410.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0216,QPSK 0017,T,31200.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0217,QPSK 0018,T,31230.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0218,QPSK 0019,T,31260.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0219,QPSK 0020,T,31290.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0221,QPSK 0021,T,31320.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0222,QPSK 0022,T,31350.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0223,QPSK 0023,T,31380.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0224,QPSK 0024,T,31410.0,30.0,000000,000000,30000.0,16.0,0225,QPSK Notes field (50 characters) Paired uplink channel number Required C/(I+N) ratio (dB) (not used) Data rate (kbps) (not used) Receive filter code (not used) Transmit power spectral density (PSD) code (not used) Channel bandwidth (MHz) Channel center frequency (MHz) Channel use (D-downlink, U-uplink, T-both) Channel number(arbitrary)

Figure UM-1 CDMA Channel Plan Template File

Several sample channel plan template files are included on the distribution CD and normally installed in the \Library Data\CPT subdirectory during program installation. This file format was developed to serve a variety of purposes in wireless system design, so you will note that many the fields specified in this file are not relevant to

1996-2012, EDX Wireless - All rights reserved.

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NDM-UMTS 2-8

EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems - System Types and Setup your 3G cellular system. The only fields that are relevant are the channel number, center frequency and bandwidth. The other fields may be filled with zeros if desired. Since this channel plan template file is a simple ASCII format file, it is easily edited to represent whatever channel plan is used in a given system, or to have it created from an external source. It is important, however, to strictly maintain the format given above to avoid errors when the program attempts to read and make use of the information in this file. If you want the band edge frequencies and carrier spacings set to the nominal standard for the given system type, click on the button labeled Set forward link
band edge to defaults.

2.5. System Service Area Boundary File

The final entry on the System Type/Service Area dialog box asks for the name of the file that describes the system service area boundary. This service area boundary file is used for a number of 3G cellular system studies so it is important that it always be specified. This file can be a MapInfo format MIF file with a polygon or region object defined, or a BNA file that describes a polygon. If you do not have such a file describing your system service area, you can create one using the drawing tools available in EDX SignalPro (see Section 6.2 in the main Reference Manual).

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems System Design

NDM-UMTS 3-1

3. System Design
The system layout and design capabilities of the Network Design Module: WCDMA & UMTS Systems (NDM-UMTS) are primarily used for new systems or overlays on existing systems. You can specify a very general service area definition (a polygon on a map), a nominal cell radius, and a cell site template (with multiple sectors if desired) to complete an entire system design with very little intervention by you. This process is described in this chapter. After the initial layout, you can adjust the location of your cell sites to achieve the coverage required and to accommodate the anticipated traffic. The contents of this chapter are divided in three main sections:
1. System layout 2. Choosing cell site/sector parameters, including propagation models 3. Calculating traffic loading on your cell site/sectors

These topics are presented in the balance of this chapter.

3.1. System Layout

The NDM-UMTS provides automatic system layout functions for 3G cellular systems. Since an automatic layout of this type does not take into account the detailed restrictions on cell site locations imposed by zoning and other criteria, nor does it inherently consider terrain features and other features that affect propagation, the system designs using this function must be regarded as preliminary. Once you have the preliminary design, you can easily (using shift-click drag and drop with the mouse) adjust the location of base stations to comply with zoning restrictions, as well as calculate and display coverage, interference and capacity maps for the system to check if the service objectives are met. You can also apply directional antennas, sectorization, cell splitting, and other techniques to improve your preliminary system design. Modifying your cell site parameters to accomplish these design refinements is discussed in Section 3.2 of this chapter. To begin your system layout, select Automatic cell layout from the WCDMA and UMTS systems menu on the Network Design/Analysis menu. A dialog box will appear as shown on the next page. To do a preliminary system layout, you must first specify a service area boundary for your system, and a nominal cell (hexagon) radius. The layout or geographical arrangement of the cell site locations will be determined by these parameters only. The service area boundary definition is contained in a data file. It is specified on the
System Type/Service Area dialog box described in the Chapter 2. It essentially is a polygon file that can be in a MapInfo .mif or .bna format. You can create the

boundary line file yourself using the drawing tools in EDX software (see Chapter 6 of the Reference Manual). Alternatively, you can use a pre-defined MapInfo .mif or .bna file that may describe a BTA or MTA boundary, for example. However you create or obtain this file, enter its name (or select it with the Browse capability) in the location indicated.

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems System Design

The nominal cell radius may be difficult to judge without assessing traffic density data. A link budget spreadsheet is available in the Network Design Module: WCDMA & UMTS Systems which can assist you in establishing a preliminary cell radius (see Section 4.2 below). This useful guide may be taken from an existing cellular system with similar traffic demands. Given no other information, a value of 2 to 3 km is a good average starting point for 3G systems that are intended to carry data traffic at rates of 256 kbps and above. Since this layout is preliminary, you will certainly have to adjust some cell site locations after the preliminary layout in any event. You must also choose from one of five transmitter site or base station templates. Depending on the type of system you are designing, you may want to use a simple single sector template, or a more common three-sector or six-sector base station template. Details on preparing your base station templates are found in Section 9.2.1 of the main Reference Manual. All of the cells that are laid out using this function will have configurations identical to the template you select. When the program lays out the cells, it uses a basic hexagon grid to determine their location. The extent of the grid is always sufficient to cover the entire service area inside the boundary you have specified. Having the hexagon grid displayed is often a helpful indication of which cells can be deleted from the initial layout. Check the box where indicated if you want the hexagon grid displayed.

3.1.1. Doing a System Layout

After you have entered the name of the service area boundary and the nominal cell radius, you are ready to have the system layout started. Click on the Start layout button. The dialog box will disappear and your map will be re-displayed with a set of cells whose composite radii completely cover the service area. This is your initial cell layout. You will also be in a special program mode that facilitates adding, deleting and moving cell sites. This is called the cell layout mode. This mode is indicated by the mouse cursor that has changed into a hexagon shape.

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NDM-UMTS 3-3

In most cases, there will be cell sites along the periphery of the service area that are not needed. You can delete these by clicking the special hexagon mouse cursor in the cell. If you change your mind and want that cell back, you can click in the open area again and the cell will be put back. When you have finished adjusting the initial hexagon cell layout, click on the Create cell/PCS sites button and the program will remove the hexagon grid and show cell sites at the center of each hexagon. At this point you will also have exited the cell layout mode. Note that the cell sites that are created this way are identical to the transmitter site template that is developed as described in Chapter 9 of the Reference Manual. You can make template sites that have directional antennas and sectors, if desired. As each cell is created, it will apply this template information and use the terrain database to find the cell site elevation. If you now want to move any of the sites, you can do so by holding down the Shift key and left-click on the cell site crosshairs to drag it to a new location. Later you can also add a cell site by using the New Site button on the toolbar. Click on it and drag it into position. As before, a new site added in this way will use one of the transmitter site templates you select at the time you add the site. With the geographical layout done, the next step in the process is to refine the locations and other parameters for your sites. This is discussed in the next section.

New site button

3.2. Cell Site Parameters

The core of any wireless RF communication system is the network of towers, transmitters, and antennas that convert information signals to radio signals that can

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems System Design be received and understood by the intended user or users. The many detailed parameters that describe this hardware for the 3G cellular system are entered on the Transmitter/Base/Hubs Site Details dialog box described in Chapter 9 of the Reference Manual. Please refer to this manual section for complete information. This chapter section will focus on those special functions associated with cell site specifications that are only available with the Network Design Module: WCDMA & UMTS Systems. These include:
1. Access to the channel plan dialog boxes where you can view, add, and delete individual channel assignments for your sector. 2. Access to sector-specific propagation models that can be tuned to best fit a set of drive-test measurement data.

These topics are discussed below.

3.2.1. W-CDMA Channels

As mentioned in Chapter 2, the channel used by W-CDMA systems are typically reused on every sector so the ability to individually select or assign them is not used for studies within the UMTS system. However, if the spectrum is being shared with other operators using non-CDMA system types, the frequency and occupied bandwidth of the W-CDMA channels used on a particular sector could be important for cross-system interference studies. You can modify these parameters by clicking on the Channels/Traffic button on the Transmitter/Base/Hub Site Details dialog box.

3.2.2. W-CDMA Traffic

The channel loading for the W-CDMA/UMTS sector can be automatically set by using traffic loading studies as described in the next chapter. The studies analyze the traffic requirements in the service area of each sector and calculate the required number of traffic (voice) channels for a given QoS (Erlang B or Erlang C blocking rate). The channel loading for each sector (whether entered manually or automatically calculated) is used for CDMA static area studies such as uplink BER and Eb/No. (See Chapter 4 in this manual section). For 3G packet-switched traffic, the same traffic loading study also calculates the maximum traffic load in terms of aggregate maximum downlink data rate in Mbps. You can also enter a measured or manually derived traffic load in Mbps if desired.

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On the CDMA Channels/Traffic dialog box, you can also set the power allocation for individual sectors if desired. Normally the CDMA parameters entered on the System Type/Basic System Parameters dialog box will govern how power is allocated at every cell sector (see Section 2.3 of this manual). However, you can uncheck the Use CDMA Defaults from System Type Dialog checkbox and modify these default, system-wide values to fine-tune your system. You can also adjust the handoff values, T_add and T_drop, and the traffic data rate. In addition, you can set the pilot PN offset index (1 to 512, usually). PN offset planning functions for CDMA systems are further discussed in Section 3.5.1 of this manual section.

3.2.3. Propagation Models

EDX SignalPro is equipped with a wide selection of propagation models. If you have the Microcell/Indoor Module, you also have additional highly accurate short-range indoor and ray-tracing models available. For PtMP systems, especially those operating at microwave frequencies, standard physical models like Free space + RMD or Anderson 2D are most commonly used and have proven to be successful for these services.

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems System Design In addition to the standard models available in EDX SignalPro, the NDM-UMTS offers you a full set of features for specifying custom propagation models and even creating them using your own measurement test data. These selections and operations are explained in the Propagation Models section of Chapter 8 of the Reference Manual. Two of the sector-specific models described there are primarily intended for PCS/cellular systems, not for multipoint systems operating at microwave frequencies. Selecting one of these would likely not be appropriate. However, the point slope model is a general-purpose model in which a piece-wise linear function is fitted to a set of signal level measurements. If the measurement data is available, this modeling approach may offer some value over a standard physical model like Free space + RMD or Anderson 2D. If you are capable of creating your own computer code, you can also have access to propagation model you can create yourself in an external Dynamic Link Library (DLL). Such models can operate as you choose to produce the desired results. See Appendix A and Appendix J for more information on external propagation models.

3.3. Traffic Loading

Once you have established the geographical location of cell sites to provide adequate signal levels throughout your service area, the next step in designing a cellular system is to calculate the amount of traffic that must be served by those sites. This is done on the Traffic Loading dialog box accessed through the Network Design/Analysis > Packet Switched Traffic Loading > LTE & UMTS menu. On this dialog box you can set the traffic distribution data source, set the details of circuit switch and packet-switched traffic loading for each traffic source, and select which transmitter group to calculate the traffic load.

3.3.1. Circuit-Switched and Packet-Switched Networks

First and second generation cellular systems have been trunked radio systems in which a number of mobile users are trying to access a limited number of radio channels or circuits. If no circuit is available, the call is blocked. The user must retry to call later to see if a circuit is then available. Once a caller has a channel or

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems System Design circuit, that circuit is dedicated to that caller until the call is completed or handed off to another cell as which point a new circuit available on this second cell must be found. Because the user has a dedicated circuit once the call is established, and the circuit is switched to another caller when the first caller is finished with it, this traffic network approach is often known as circuit-switched. In contrast, in packet-switched networks there are no channels or circuits dedicated to particular user. Instead, any of the channel resources on the serving cell may be chosen to carry a particular packet or packet stream from any given user. If all channels are currently occupied carrying packets for other users, the packets are not blocked but simply delayed until the system can accommodate them. This is why Quality of Service (QoS) in packet switched networks cannot be assessed by blocking rates but rather by net throughput and latency (delay in response to transmitted traffic). 3G systems are packet-switched CDMA systems, so you will want to use the Packet-switched traffic densities and Packet-switched traffic definitions buttons on the Traffic Loading dialog box. If you are interested in learning more about handling circuit-switched traffic, please refer to the Network Design Module: Mobile & Nomadic section of this manual. Before specifying the details of the kind of packet traffic carried on your system, however, you must first select the traffic density data source. There are four traffic density data sources, or distributions, which can be selected:
1. Uniform Traffic Distribution. Uniform distribution in which the probability of traffic originating from a given place inside the cell system service boundary is assumed to be equal. The actual traffic density in mErlangs per square kilometer is set by clicking on the Circuit-switched traffic density button and entering the appropriate numbers (see Section 3.3.2). 2. Traffic Based on Land Use (Clutter) Database. If you select this traffic data source, the distribution of traffic will be weighted according to the land use or morphology category. Typical there will be more calls originating from urban areas than agricultural areas, for example. The traffic density for each land use category in mErlangs per square kilometer is set by clicking on the Circuitswitched traffic density button and entering the appropriate numbers (see Section 3.3.2 on the following page). To use this option you must have specified a land use (clutter) database as described in Chapter 10 of the Reference Manual. 3. Traffic Based on Demographic Database. If you select this option, the traffic will be weighted according to the population in a given region of your cell system service area. The traffic density per 1000 population in mErlangs per square kilometer is set by clicking on the Circuit-switched traffic density button and entering the appropriate numbers (see Section 3.3.2 on the following page). To use this option you must have specified a demographic database as described in Chapter 10 of the Reference Manual. 4. Traffic from Traffic Database. If you select this option, the traffic will be weighted according to actual traffic density valued in a traffic database in a given region of you cell system service area. To use

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems System Design

this option you must have specified a traffic database as described in Chapter 10 of the Reference Manual.

The dialog boxes for entering circuit-switched and packet-switched traffic are described below.

3.3.2. Packet-Switched Traffic Density

On the Packet-Switched Traffic Density dialog box you can enter specific information about the traffic on your system. You will see a dialog box where you can name up to five different services types that will be carried by your system. These names can be anything, but are best chosen to indicate the service type. Typical examples are G.711 or AMR Voice, HTTP Web-browsing, FTP, ITPV (video), e-mail, etc. For each service type you can specify the user density of each of the five possible traffic density sources listed above. For example, if you want to plan your system to accommodate 17 mobiles/square km using webbrowsing, enter a 17 in the first column after the row where you have listed web browsing. A similar approach is used to plan for a certain number of users per 1000 population. To set user density levels for different land use categories as defined in your land use database, click on the button as indicated alongside the service type.

If you dont have specific information on the number of users of particular services in given areas, you can instead choose to entry a single data traffic load in kbps that represents average traffic for all service types that will be used in a sector service area. To do this, click on the radio button labeled Use single average traffic density for all service types. The appropriate data entry points will become active and you can then enter the desired values.

3.3.3. Packet-Switched Traffic Definitions

On the packet-switched density dialog box described above, you enter the names of up to five different service types that can be accessed on your system. For each of these five service types you can specify the details of the data rate separately for both

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems System Design the uplink and downlink. This is done by clicking on the Packet-switched traffic definitions button on the Traffic Loading dialog box.

NDM-UMTS 3-9

For each of up to five service types, and for uplink and downlink, you can set:
1. The maximum uplink and downlink per-user/session data rates (the data rate at which packets are transmitted) 2. Where the service is real-time such as voice use the "UM (Unacknowledged Mode)" Service Flow. The "AM (Acknowledged Mode)" selection is for Best Effort data traffic. AM service flow has the option of specifying the activity percentage.

3.3.4. Doing a Traffic Loading Study

Before doing traffic loading studies, there are two other parameters that need to be set. The first lets you choose the transmitter group for which the traffic loading is to be calculated. (See Chapter 9 in the Reference Manual for information on Transmitter Groups). Typically you will be calculating traffic for all cell base station sectors in your system, but if desired, you can create sub-groups of sectors and just calculate traffic loading for them. On the Traffic Loading dialog box, you also have the option to have only a portion of the total calculated traffic load applied to your selected group or cell base stations or sectors. Normally this should be set to 100%. However, if you are designing an overlay system that is intended to handle only a portion of the overall traffic load, or your CDMA system is one in which the traffic load is shared among more than one CDMA carrier, you may want to set this to something less than 100%. With these parameters set, click on the Calculate average traffic load on each sector button. The program will proceed to calculate the service area of each sector (those areas where it is the most likely server). With the service areas known, it will use your selected traffic data source (uniform, land use, demographic, etc.) to determine the aggregate traffic load in Mbps in the service area of each cell sector. A status window will be displayed as the program progresses through these calculations. The actual amount of traffic load calculated for each sector depends on whether you opted to use average traffic density values or explicitly specified the user density for each service type. In the first case, the program simply takes the traffic density in

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems System Design kbps and multiplies it by the area, population, or land use categories within the service area to find the total traffic for each sector. For example, if the service area of a sector was 100 square kilometers, and the traffic density was 100 kbps/square kilometer, the total traffic for that sector would be 10 Mbps. If you elected to use explicitly specified user densities for each service type, the program will first calculate the average downlink traffic data rate for each service using the packet data rate. It will multiply that value by the user density (number of users per square km) for that service type, and finally multiply that result by the service area of the sector. This is done for each service type and the results are added to produce a total average traffic requirement in Mbps. It is important to remember that these traffic loads are average traffic loads calculated as described above. The peak or burst loads may be much higher depending on the traffic statistics. When the traffic loading calculations are finished, the results are written to a report called sector_traffic_loading.txt that can be found in the \reports folder of your project directory. You can use the Utilities\System reports feature to view this or any other report file. The traffic loading information is also automatically attached to the data for each cell sector so that it appears in the Predicted value in Mbps of the sector traffic section of the Channels dialog box for each sector (see Section 3.2.2).

3.4. Other Design Functions

The Network Design Module: WCDMA & UMTS Systems includes two other design functions that you will find useful. The first is CDMA scrambling code offset planning. This study is essentially the same as the PN offset code planning for CDMA-2000 1x systems. For 3G W-CDMA systems the PN code is known as the scrambling code. The second is a neighbor list calculation, an operation that is useful to all types of cellular systems. These functions are described below.

3.4.1. CDMA Scrambling Code Offset Planning

When you have a CDMA system, each sector is assigned a pilot PN or scrambling code offset that is used for cell site pilot recognition. It is important to assign PN offset codes that do not interfere at the mobile unit, otherwise there could be pilot ambiguity and the call will fail to set up or be dropped. Whether or not interference occurs between PN offset codes depends on the assigned codes, the time delay between the arriving signals, the search window width, and whether the amplitude of the interference signal is sufficiently strong to cause interference. The later two parameters (search window width and necessary C/I ratio) are set on the Basic System Parameters dialog box for the system (See Chapter 2). When the PN offset planning function operates, it will attempt to assign the PN offset codes to each sector starting with the first available code. It will analyze the potential for interference for both co-channel and adjacent-channel codes. If it finds no potential for interference, it will assign a code and move on to the next sector. If

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems System Design it finds potential interference, it will move on to the next available code and try the process again. It will keep trying until if finds a suitable PN offset assignment for each sector that does not conflict with the PN offset assignment. The actual engineering calculations used to determine whether there is potential interference are somewhat involved. The method used in the NDM-UMTS is derived from the information in Reference [2]. Please consult this reference for further information.

NDM-UMTS 3-11

Depending on the system you are designing, you may also want to set some PN offset codes in reserve to provide for the future addition of microcell cells or other overlay systems. You can create a list of such reserved codes in this dialog box. The program will avoid assigning any PN offset codes that are listed as reserve codes.

3.4.2. Neighbor Lists

Neighbors in a cell system are other cell base stations or sectors that have signals of sufficient strength in the service area of another cell base station or sector where they are candidates for call handoff. Normally neighbor lists are part of the information that is stored at the cell site and, depending on the cell technology type, may be downloaded to the mobile unit to facilitate handoff from the currently serving base station to another base station. The neighbor list calculation in the Network Design Module: WCDMA & UMTS Systems is intended as a simple means of determining which sectors are neighbors, and thereby, handoff candidates. In the dialog box set the minimum percent area of the primary server that needs to be covered by another server in order for the other server to be considered a neighbor. You can optionally include the 2nd and 3rd best servers in the list and not include co-channel neighbors (same channel or frequency). Select the transmitter group for which you want the neighbor list study done.

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems System Design

There is also a selection as to how to select and rank sectors for determination of them as a server or neighbor. Power Received ranks them based on power at the Remote unit whereas C/(I+N) Best Channel looks for the best possible C/(I+N) of a server using one of its assigned channel plan channels (this option is intended for systems other than WCDMA/UMTS). The signal thresholds at which a server can be considered a neighbor is set by the Remote/Mobile Unit Required Server Threshold or Required Service C/(I+N). The Mobile/remote unit used by this study can also be specified. When these parameters are set the ways you want them, click on the Calculate neighbor lists for all sectors button and the calculation process will begin. Fundamentally, the program assesses the service area of each sector, and for the analysis grid points within this service area, determines which other cell sites are the second and third (if selected) best servers within the service area of the primary server. These are considered to be the neighbor cell base stations or sectors to which handoffs are likely. There is a checkbox option to automatically copy all of the predicted neighbor cells as actual neighbor cells for all of the W-CDMA sectors in the transmitter group When the analysis is complete, the neighbor list is applied to the information for each cell base station or sector. It can be viewed by selecting the Neighbor List button on the Transmitter Details dialog box as described in Chapter 9 of the Reference Manual. There are more complicated ways to calculate predicted neighbor lists, however the simple method used here is largely as effective as other methods and provides for a very rapid calculation time.

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3.5. References
[1] Clint Smith and Curt Gervalis. Cellular System Design and Optimization. New York: McGraw-Hill. 1996. Chapter 4. [2] Samuel C. Yang. CDMA RF System Engineering. Boston: Artech House Publishers, 1998, pp. 165-174. [3] Harri Holma and Antti Toskala, WCDMA for UMTS. Chichester, U.K.: John Wiley and Sons, 2001. [4] Jonathan P. Castro, The UMTS Network and Radio Access Technology. Chichester, U.K.: John Wiley and Sons, 2001. [5] ETSI Report TR101 112, Section B.1.2.2

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems 3G System Studies

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4. 3G System Studies
EDX software offers several Basic Area Study types that can be used to find system performance information for your set of cell sectors. These studies are listed in Table 8-2 of the Reference Manual, with a detailed discussion of the calculations given in Appendix F. Many of these study types are directly useful to your design, such as received power (base-to-mobile and mobile-to-base), most likely server, and others. To understand and use these studies, review Section 8.5 and Appendix F. While the Basic Area Study types available in EDX software are useful for a wide variety of wireless communication systems ranging from broadcast to paging to MMDS and LMDS, PCS and cellular system design requires additional specialized studies. The Network Design Module: WCDMA & UMTS Systems (NDM-UMTS) augments EDX softwares Basic Area Study types with several specialized 3G CDMA studies. Maps showing downlink Eb/No ratios, handoff areas, several other CDMA system study types (uplink and downlink data rates, uplink BER, etc.) are easily calculated and displayed on your map with the NDM-UMTS. The first part of this chapter describes how to select these special study types. The second part of the chapter provides detailed calculations with equations for the information shown by each of the specialized maps.

See Chapter 9 of the Reference Manual for more information on setting the cell sector parameters.

4.1. Selecting a 3G Cellular System Study

To do a system study, select the Studies > Area Studies item from the menu as shown in Chapter 1. A dialog box will appear which is the Area Study Manager dialog box for the current Map View. The studies you have already selected (whether Basic Area Studies or specialized 3G Cellular Areas Studies) will be shown here. To add a new 3G cellular study, click on the Add Study button and choose the "3G/PCS Cellular" item in the Area Study Group drop-down. The list of 3G studies are then presented in the studies drop-down and you can also set the details of the study you want to do. The first entry is the most important the study type. Table UM4-1 shows the currently available study types in the Network Design Module: WCDMA & UMTS Systems. The other study and display parameters that you enter on this dialog box are explained in detail in Section 8.5 of the main Reference Manual. Before starting an Area Study you must first specify the parameters of the cell sectors that will be involved in the study and set those sectors to Active. Refer to Chapter 9 of the Reference Manual for information on setting cell sector parameters. You may also want to arrange the cell sites into groups so they can be studied independently or together. Section 9.2.1 of the Reference Manual discusses how to create and edit transmitter groups.
Appendix F describes the EDX software study types in detail.

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Table UM4-1 3G Cellular System Studies

No. 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 Study Type 3G best server based on pilot Ec/Io 3G best server based on traffic Eb/No 3G handoff regions 3G reverse link BER Strongest 3G pilot Ec/Io 3G downlink Eb/No 3G uplink Eb/No Number of 3G pilots above T_add 3G scrambling code offset conflicts 3G uplink ERP to achieve target Eb/No 3G downlink CDMA maximum data rate 3G uplink CDMA maximum data rate

You also need to specify the parameters of your mobile unit on the Receiver/Remote/Mobile Unit dialog box as described on Chapter 9 for the Reference Manual. The mobile power (ERP) is especially important for accurate studies of uplink performance. Finally, you must also specify the general parameters of your 3G cellular system described earlier in Chapter 2.

Click on Area studies display style to enter the number of ranges or levels to display. You can enter from 2 to 10 ranges or levels. For composite grid plots you must also select a grid symbol type for each range. The solid (filled) rectangle is most

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems 3G System Studies commonly used, but several other types are available. Because the values entered for grid and 3D plots are actually ranges, the last range value is automatically set to be everything lower than the second to last level.

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For color gradient and composite contours, the range labels change to level labels. Each level value and color is independently specified. The grid symbols do not apply to these plots. For best or most likely server studies, there is no specific level information so colors and symbols are initially and automatically assigned to cell sectors by the program. These colors are then displayed at those study area locations where that cell sector provides the strongest signal. Once you have displayed a most likely server map, you can adjust the colors and symbols associated with individual sectors to eliminate color conflicts with neighboring cell sectors. These color/symbol adjustments are done for each sector on the Transmitter/Base/Hub Sites Details dialog box as described in Section 9.2 of the Reference Manual. Below the display type selection, you will see places to select the Primary and Secondary transmitter groups. Transmitter groups are created and used as described in Chapter 9. For all 3G UMTS Area Studies, only the Primary group is relevant. The drop down list here will show you all the transmitter groups that have been defined. You may select any of those listed. The next selection in the Area Studies dialog box is whether you want to use the radial line or direct to grid calculation method. Normally, the radial line method is your best choice, but for some circumstances you may want to use the direct to grid method. More information on making this selection can be found in Appendix F. Another piece of information that is entered in the Area Studies dialog box is the display signal threshold. This quantity is used in assessing whether the signal received at the mobile or remote unit from the base is above or below the threshold. By selecting an appropriate value here, you can suppress the display of any C/(I+N) or MLS information where the received signal level is below the entered threshold value. In this way, you can logically AND the display area study results with a

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems System Studies service threshold. See Appendix F to understand exactly how this value is used in calculating and displaying a study. The Area Studies dialog box also provides a number of other selections that control the line widths for various areas study displays where lines are involved. For most C/(I+N) calculations, you will also see a set of radio buttons that give you the option of choosing which quantities are used in the denominator. For some types of analysis, it is helpful to see C/I only or C/N only to get a view of the extent to which interference or noise alone is affecting the received signal. After you have set all the parameters in the Area Studies box, select OK. Then click on the Area Study button. Before actually displaying the study, the program performs a series of steps to calculate the signal level for the active transmitters involved. The first step is to extract terrain elevations around the cell sector as specified for that cell sector (see Chapter 8 of the Reference Manual). The next step is to calculate signal levels where the terrain elevations were found. The final step is to take the signal levels for each transmitter and combine them in such a way as to produce the study results that youve selected. As it performs each of these steps the program will display an appropriate status message. The significant results at each step are saved in files that are stored in predefined subdirectories so they can be re-used later if they are applicable. Terrain extraction files are stored in subdirectory TRN and have file names id.trn where ID is the transmitter eight character identification code. Similarly, the signal level results are stored in subdirectory SDY and have files names id.rad. The final displayed study results for grid and contour studies are stored in a file called an .mxx grid file that is stored in the \MXX folder in your project directory. This file is recalculated whenever you start a study. When the study results are finally displayed, the program will return to the normal Main Map display with your current map view. All of the additional spatial and other map data you have selected will also be displayed along with your area study information.

Area study button

Only active sectors in Active groups are use in the study.

4.2. Specialized 3G Cellular Study Formulas

Appendix F describes the EDX software study types in detail.

As explained above, the formulas or equations used to construct the Basic Area Study types in EDX software are set forth in Appendix F. This same appendix also provides similar information for the specialized 3G cellular studies.

4.3. References
[1] V.G. Garg and J.E. Wilkes. Wireless and Personal Communications Systems. PrenticeHall PTR: Upper Saddle River, NJ. 1996. Page 42-45. [2] Samuel C. Yang. CDMA RF System Engineering. Boston: Artech House Publishers, 1998, pp. 165-174.

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems Static Monte Carlo Analysis

NDM-UMTS 5-1

5. Static Monte Carlo Analysis

The performance of cellular systems is primarily a function of two things:
1) the basic service area of the system as determined by minimum receive signals for both uplink and downlink, and 2) the system loading how many users are attempting to access the system at a given time

A well-designed cellular system that is extracting the maximum capacity from the infrastructure will be interference-limited. Because of this, the issue of system loading becomes the critical one. Unfortunately, how the system is loaded is a function of where the mobile units are and what service level they require. Although it is possible to use statistical probabilities for where a mobile is more likely to be, it is not possible to know specifically where any particular mobiles will be located at any given time this is inherently random. However, to accurately access cellular system performance, especially CDMA system performance, some way of estimating or assuming specific mobile locations must be used. One approach that is commonly used to deal with this problem is the so-called Monte Carlo method so-named for the gambling casinos in Monte Carlo. A Monte Carlo analysis essentially is an educated guess at where the mobiles are, like guessing the outcome in gambling. By making multiple guesses, and assessing the outcome (system performance) after each guess, you can gain an understanding for the actual operation of the system under a variety of loading conditions. In the same way, if you did not know that a die had six sides, you could figure this out by simply rolling the die a number of times and noting that (eventually) every side comes up approximately 1/6th of the time. To achieve an accurate profile of system performance, a Monte Carlo analysis on a cellular system also has to run a number of times to produce a result that is a statistically significant representation of the system performance. The Monte Carlo analysis is also a satisfying approach in that it closely mimics the actual operation of the cellular system. As a mobile user attempts to make a call from anywhere in the service area, the analysis will calculate the best server for that mobile, analyze interference, adjust mobile power levels, etc., just as the real system does. If the system is unable to connect the mobile, it will report it as blocked and move on to the next randomly positioned mobile and try again. When the rate of blocking exceeds a given design level, the system is considered to have reached its capacity limit. Although the Monte Carlo approach could be applied to any cellular or PCS system, in general it is only used for CDMA systems since the capacity and service range of such systems is directly affected by the loading. The Monte Carlo approach described in this chapter is know as a static Monte Carlo simulation because the mobiles, one placed, remain in the same location and the service requirements of the mobiles remain unchanged once service has started.

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems Static Monte Carlo Analysis

The following sections of this chapter describe the operation of the static Monte Carlo analysis in the Network Design Module: WCDMA & UMTS Systems.

5.1. Setting Up the Static Monte Carlo Analysis

To start the Monte Carlo analysis, select Static Monte Carlo simulation from the WCDMA and UMTS systems menu. This will bring up a dialog box where you can set a few basic parameters that control how the analysis is done. At the top of the dialog box you can enter the number of iterations. For each iteration, the program will start loading the system one mobile at a time until the simulation stopping point is reached. This can be either a fixed number of mobiles added, or more typically, the point where enough mobiles have been loaded in the system that the soft blocking target rate is achieved. When all the mobiles have been added that can be added, the end of one iteration has been reached. When you set the number of iterations, you are telling the program how many such system loading trials you want to do. Technically, the number of iterations should be chosen so that sufficient trials have been completed and the summary of the results are statistically significant. Informally, this will depend on how much the results vary from one iteration to another. By observing these variations in the Monte Carlo reports, you can get a sense of how many iterations provide you with enough information to know the average loading your system is capable of. A typical value to start with is

1996-2012, EDX Wireless - All rights reserved.

Revised: 2012/08/01

EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems Static Monte Carlo Analysis 10 to 20 iterations. Of course, the study calculation time will be a direct function of how many iterations you select, and how complicated your system is (how many base stations). The next set of items on the dialog box let you select the method for terminating each iteration. As mentioned above, usually a system loading trial or iteration is terminated when the soft blocking rate on adding new mobiles exceeds a given percentage typically 2%. You can also select a given disconnect rate or average sector loading percentage as the termination threshold. Alternately, you can force the system to load a fixed number of mobiles and then observe the resulting blocking rates in the Monte Carlo analysis reports for each iteration. The next entry lets you select which transmitter group will be used in the analysis. Usually you will want all your base stations in the trial, but for special circumstances, you may want to do loading analysis on just a subset of your base stations. One important note if you do this: since the random placement of mobiles will be everywhere inside the system service boundary, you will usually want to adjust this service boundary so that it just encompasses the reasonable service area of the subset of base stations in your selected group. If you use a much larger service area description, the Monte Carlo analysis will attempt to add mobiles that are far away from your subset of base stations and cannot possibly be served. The soft blocking rate will quickly be reached and the analysis results will be pessimistically biased. The next entry lets you choose the distribution of mobile types you want to use. In EDX SignalPro you can specify the parameters of up to five different mobile units. The entry on the Monte Carlo dialog box gives you the option of using one or more mobile units, and selecting what percentage of the total mobiles will be represented for each type. When the simulation is running, it will use the specific characteristics you have set for the mobiles including noise figure and transmit power levels. The final entry lets you select a seed number for the random number generator than is used to place the mobile locations. By using the same seed number every time, you can exactly repeat an analysis (iteration) if you choose to do so. Of course, when running multiple iterations in sequence, the starting mobile seed on only the first iteration is controlled by this seed value. Before you begin your analysis, it is important that you check that your base station parameters are set the way you want them. The static Monte Carlo analysis will use the system base stations exactly as you have specified them. If they are incorrect, the result analysis will also be incorrect. In particular, make sure that your have set the mobile maximum and minimum ERP for the mobile on the Receiver/Remote /Mobile Unit dialog box on the RF Systems menu. This power range is critical to the analysis since it sets the power control range available on the mobile unit. A minimum power range of 40dB is required for a successful study.

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See Chapter 9 of the Reference Manual for more information on setting the cell sector parameters.

5.2. Running a Static Monte Carlo Analysis

Once you have set all your Monte Carlo analysis parameters the way you want them, your CDMA system parameters are correctly set, and your base station and mobile parameters are the way you want them, you are ready to start the analysis. Click the Start simulation button. The program will first analyze downlink and uplink signal

1996-2012, EDX Wireless - All rights reserved.

Revised: 2012/08/01

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems Static Monte Carlo Analysis levels using standard area study methods as described Chapter 8 of the Reference Manual. With these values established, the program will start to place mobiles using your selected traffic distribution. A status box will be displayed that shows the iteration number and the number of mobiles that have been added. When it reaches the termination point for the iteration, it stops that iteration and goes on until all the iterations youve requested are completed. At the conclusion of each iteration, the program writes two files: one is a report file (.txt file) located in the Reports folder of your project directory that summarizes the results and outcome for that iteration. The name of this file is static_ carlo_mc_xxx.txt, where xxx stands for the iteration number. There will be one file produced for each iteration. You can view the contents of the file by selecting System reports on the 3G UMTS menu, scrolling down to the desired report file and double clicking on the name. The file will be open and displayed in Wordpad where you can edit, print or rename the file. Note that these iteration files are temporary files - they will be over-written the next time you do a Monte Carlo analysis. If you want to preserve the results from any iteration, save or copy the file to another name. At the end of each iteration the program also creates a MapInfo format MIF file (and companion MID file) that shows the final location of the mobiles when the iteration ended. These mobile locations can be displayed on your map as diamond symbols by using EDX softwares geographic file display feature as described in Chapter 7 in the Reference Manual. When displayed, the mobile distribution map becomes another map layer that is displayed relative to all the other map layers. Displaying the mobile locations on your map for a given iteration can provide useful inside as to why a particular iteration may have produced skewed results. At the end of all the iterations, the program produces a summary file called static_cdma_monte_carlo_summary.txt that can also be found in the \Reports folder of your project directory. This file contains the final results for each iteration as an indication of the average system performance and number of mobiles that your system can support given the infrastructure (base stations) locations, system parameters, and assumed traffic distribution.

1996-2012, EDX Wireless - All rights reserved.

Revised: 2012/08/01

EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems Static Monte Carlo Analysis

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Figure UM5-1 - Monte Carlo mobile placement with uniform traffic distribution

Figure UM5-2 - Monte Carlo mobile placement with demographic traffic distribution

1996-2012, EDX Wireless - All rights reserved.

Revised: 2012/08/01

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EDX Wireless NDM: WCDMA & UMTS Systems Static Monte Carlo Analysis

Figure UM5-3 Example of part of the report produced of system performance for each iteration.

1996-2012, EDX Wireless - All rights reserved.

Revised: 2012/08/01