HSPA+ Evolution to Release 12: Performance and Optimization

12 Radio Network Optimization

Pablo Tapia and Carl Williams

12.1 Introduction

To ensure an optimum operation of the HSPA+ technology the operator has to make a multitude of decisions when planning and optimizing the network, considering multiple components: from the device to the network and up to the application servers. In a HSPA+ system there are four main areas that the operator needs to address in order to achieve the desired service performance:

• Radio network planning, such as the location of cell sites, orientation of antennas, transmit power adjustments, and radio network capacity adjustments.
• Transport and core network planning, which will determine the latency and capacity of the backhaul and interconnection links, the location of the core network nodes, and the corresponding core network capacity adjustments.
• Terminal devices. The devices are a major component of the experience of the customer, and care should be taken on the selection of the right hardware components such as CPU and memory, the optimization of transceiver and radio modem, selection and adaptation of the OS, and development and adjustment of apps.
• Soft parameters, which control the adjustment of radio and core functionality such as resource allocation, scheduling, and mobility management procedures.

When planning and optimizing the network, there will often be a tradeoff between quality, capacity, and cost. In some cases, if certain key guidelines are followed, tradeoffs are not necessary and the ...