Novel Heuristics for Cell Radius Determination in WCDMA Systems and Their Application to Strategic Planning Studies

We propose and compare three novel heuristics for the calculation of the optimal cell radius in mobile networks based on Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) technology. The proposed heuristics solve the problem of the load assignment and cellular radius calculation. We have tested our approaches with experiments in multiservices scenarios showing that the proposed heuristics maximize the cell radius, providing the optimum load factor assignment. The main application of these algorithms is strategic planning studies, where an estimation of the number of Nodes B of the mobile operator, at a national level, is required for economic analysis. In this case due to the large number of different scenarios considered (cities, towns, and open areas) other methods than simulation need to be considered. As far as we know, there is no other similar method in the literature and therefore these heuristics may represent a novelty in strategic network planning studies. The proposed heuristics are implemented in a strategic planning software tool and an example of their application for a case in Spain is presented. The proposed heuristics are used for telecommunications regulatory studies in several countries.