Patent ID: 7103361

Claim:
Method for the planning and/or evaluation of a capacity in a radio network comprising at least one base station (BS 1 ,BS 2 ) defining at least one cell, the method comprising the steps of (a) defining a limiting capacity representative value to the at least one base station (BS 1 ,BS 2 ) in the at least one cell; (b) adding an amount of traffic (T BS ) to the at least one cell and calculating a used capacity representative value at the at least one base station (BS 1 ,BS 2 ) for the added amount of traffic (T BS ); (c) determining whether or not more traffic (T BS ) can be added by comparing the limiting capacity representative value to at least the used capacity representative value; and (d) repeating adding an amount of traffic (T BS ) and determining whether or not more traffic (T BS ) can be added, as long as more traffic (T BS ) can be added; wherein in which a fixed amount of traffic (T BS ) is added; wherein the amount of traffic (T BS ) is chosen such that the increase in used capacity representative value is fixed; wherein an inter-cell interference effect is included in the calculation of the used capacity representative value; wherein a soft handover effect is included in the calculation of the used capacity representative value; wherein the radio network is a CDMA network; and wherein: the capacity is a downlink capacity, the traffic (T BS ) is downlink traffic (T BS ), the limiting capacity representative value is a maximum allowed transmission power (P BS,max ), the used capacity representative value is a required transmission power P traffic , determining whether or not more downlink traffic (T BS ) can be added by comparing the maximum allowed transmission power (P BS,max ) to the sum of a fixed power (P fixed ) and the transmission power P traffic , the method further comprising the step of (a 2 ) defining the fixed power (P fixed ) to the at least one base station (BS 1 ,BS 2 ) in the at least one cell.