UMTS RAN Capacity Analysis for Special Events
Special events such as music festivals, sports etc are characterised as high user density where user behaviour is determined by the dynamics of the event. This is the reason that it is necessary for a mobile network operator to dimension its network based on maximum expected resource requirements instead on averaged values. Although special events are taking place almost every week, in most cases not enough attention has been paid to the problem of resource dimensioning in the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System networks, and the appropriate cost function to equate the optimal quantities resources has not been developed. It is therefore necessary to be aware that special events networks should be dimensioned with the maximum resource requirements, using distributed antenna system (DAS) where possible, and the consolidated baseband processing resources. Appropriate cost function will be used to describe optimal design that should depend on the number of sectors needed, radio network controller and the overall network capacity. A suitable radio access network (RAN) analysis has been performed and a cost function has been developed in order to create the metrics that can be used for evaluating the cost of dimensioning the RAN in special events. It can be shown based on proposed metrics that 10% of savings in resources could be achieved by degrading the grade of service less than 1%.
umts special events cost function channel elements