Discussion: WCDMA wireless network planning

WCDMA in the mobile 3G wireless network system is well known in the 2G era. In the 3G era, its features have been used better. The focus of this article is related to the WCDMA wireless network planning, including the principles and precautions.

Compared with the 2G era, the 3G era is an era of competition. Many operators will participate in the 3G competition. for users, the advantages and disadvantages of providing services by operators will directly affect users' recognition. Therefore, from the very beginning, operators should prepare to build a high-quality network that can provide various types of services and is competitive. This is the starting point of WCDMA wireless network planning.

Network Planning content

WCDMA network planning mainly includes coverage planning, capacity planning, business quality planning, and related wireless network resource planning. The coverage of the WCDMA system is related to the system capacity and load status. Increasing system load will narrow the coverage, which is the "soft" feature of WCDMA. At the same time, the goal of the WCDMA System is to provide users with services with different rates and QoS quality requirements, including voice services, therefore, the business quality requirements are closely related to network coverage and capacity. In the same community, different coverage areas can provide businesses with different quality requirements.

The goal of the WCDMA network planning is to plan and design the corresponding engineering parameters and wireless resource management parameters based on the planned wireless network characteristics and network planning requirements, this minimizes the overall network construction cost while meeting certain signal coverage, system capacity, and service quality requirements, and ensures a good network upgrading capability. Therefore, WCDMA wireless network planning generally needs to focus on the following aspects.

(1) Overall Planning

WCDMA is a self-interference system. The core of WCDMA wireless network planning is system interference control. If we still adopt the phased planning and phased implementation principles of the traditional GSM wireless network plan, there will be a strong disturbance from the new station to the original system, this has been confirmed in the Construction of CDMA networks at home and abroad. Therefore, the WCDMA network plan generally adopts the overall network-wide plan and implements the plan in stages, that is, the number of users and traffic of the WCDMA network in the next few years through reasonable traffic prediction, the WCDMA wireless network is planned accordingly. In the implementation process, network construction is carried out in stages based on the predicted number of users and traffic, which will greatly reduce the maintenance and optimization costs in the future, the system will also be able to be upgraded.

Based on the network-wide overall planning and phased implementation principle, it is necessary to accurately predict the number of users and business development in the future. If the prediction is too high, the construction costs will increase, however, too low predictions will not meet the development needs of the actual business. The development of the economy, the changes in the market competition, and the emergence of new technologies may have a greater impact on the accuracy of prediction. Therefore, in order to ensure a certain degree of foresight and adapt to changes in various conditions, the prediction time is generally set to 3 ~ 5 years is recommended.

(2) coverage and capacity planning

Based on different development strategies, 3G development positioning, and allocable resources, there will be different principles for WCDMA coverage. It generally includes "island-type" coverage, first meeting the needs of hotspot areas, and then gradually expanding 3G coverage and capacity. "network-type" coverage, 3G construction adopts the form of wide coverage and small capacity, capacity expansion will be carried out gradually; "Comprehensive" coverage, wide coverage, large capacity, all-round deployment, and rapid commercialization of 3G scale.
 
According to the game of various factors, WCDMA network coverage should generally take into account the regional economic development level, market demand and other conditions, and achieve continuous coverage in economically developed areas with high market demand, covering key cities and regions in less-developed areas, that is, the "Internet-based" coverage is adopted. At the same time, with the development of the WCDMA network, network planning should cover the vast majority of villages and towns in developed provinces and cities, and cover a small portion of villages and towns in moderately developed areas, and finally achieve nationwide coverage.