Dimensioning of Hardware Components in UMTS Networks with Sectorized NodeBs

Abstract: The dimensioning of hardware components takes place at the end of the UMTS radio network planning process when a suitable NodeB site configuration has been found. Each connection to a NodeB requires a service specific number of hardware components and an incoming connection is blocked if not enough components are available. The aim of hardware dimensioning is to find the cost-optimal hardware configuration for given service-specific target blocking probabilities. The challenge for the dimensioning process is that additionally to the hard blocking also system-inherent soft blocking occurs. We propose an algorithm for the cost-optimal dimensioning of the shared hardware components in the NodeB according to the service specific blocking targets. The algorithm considers the sector-individual soft capacities and the requirements on the shared hardware pool at the NodeB. We show that ignoring the system-inherent soft blocking of the UMTS radio interface leads to considerable overor under-dimensioning and therefore has to be included in a proper dimensioning algorithm.