Patent ID: 8140090

Claim:
A method for estimating a territorial distribution of traffic in a selected area of a cellular radio mobile communications network; comprising: dividing the selected area into a plurality of traffic-generating area elements; determining overall traffic in respect of said selected network area; and distributing the overall traffic across the plurality of traffic-generating area elements, said distributing further comprising: calculating, for each of said traffic-generating area elements, a respective network traffic generation propension, wherein said network traffic generation propension is adapted to provide an indication of a forecasted population of users of the network in respect of the traffic generating area element; estimating a distribution of a radio electromagnetic field associated with a current network configuration across said selected area, said estimating comprising obtaining an indication of the radio electromagnetic field strength in each of said traffic-generating area elements based on a configuration of radio base stations; and assigning to each of said traffic-generating area elements a respective overall traffic portion based on the respective network traffic generation propension and the respective indication of the radio electromagnetic field strength of the configuration of radio base stations, wherein the assigning comprises weighting the network traffic generation propension of each of said traffic-generating area elements by means of the respective indication of the radio electromagnetic field strength of the configuration of radio base stations.