4. Tools : Well, I am sure everyone is aware of iBwave and their certifications. If not, please go to http://www.ibwave.com/..This tool is now almost used as a standard. I like the details they have covered while designing the tool. Many operators do have specific requirements for the design (then I realized the importance of this certification)..
More inputs like, photos from site surveys, floorplans, intended area of coverage, material of walls/cabins, type of floor, location of pillars play a very important role!! It might not seem necessary to go to such minute details but it indeed is. (One single prediction plot after defining walls will show a big big difference)
5. Optimization : Well a well designed network can be easy to optimize but that wont be the case always. A perfect design also will need tweaks. Optimization includes making intra and inter frequency handoff work, making the sector boundaries visible, having good uplink and downlink performance, not having any coverage hole, not having multiple sectors equally dominant at the same location. There are different KPIs to be covered in this phase like, call drops, attachments rates, handoffs between sectors, CSFBs . These might need specific tests. These tests are sometimes operator specific.
6. Noise/Traffic/Link Budget : Link budget part is generally easy to generate. The tool helps you in that. Noise can be tricky to handle as PIM can trouble you big time!! Traffic (and those erlang charts) is an important consideration while designing and optimizing the system
More inputs like, photos from site surveys, floorplans, intended area of coverage, material of walls/cabins, type of floor, location of pillars play a very important role!! It might not seem necessary to go to such minute details but it indeed is. (One single prediction plot after defining walls will show a big big difference)
5. Optimization : Well a well designed network can be easy to optimize but that wont be the case always. A perfect design also will need tweaks. Optimization includes making intra and inter frequency handoff work, making the sector boundaries visible, having good uplink and downlink performance, not having any coverage hole, not having multiple sectors equally dominant at the same location. There are different KPIs to be covered in this phase like, call drops, attachments rates, handoffs between sectors, CSFBs . These might need specific tests. These tests are sometimes operator specific.
6. Noise/Traffic/Link Budget : Link budget part is generally easy to generate. The tool helps you in that. Noise can be tricky to handle as PIM can trouble you big time!! Traffic (and those erlang charts) is an important consideration while designing and optimizing the system
