Indoor Radio Planning: A Practical Guide for GSM, DCS, UMTS, HSPA and LTE, Second Edition

3.1 Why is In-building Coverage Important?

There are many reasons for the mobile operator, both technical and commercial, for providing sufficient in-building coverage. The technical motivations are typical; lack of coverage, improvement of service quality, need for more capacity, need for higher data rates and to offload the existing macro network. In 3G (UMTS) networks, the need to offload the existing macro network is an especially important parameter. The need for higher-speed data rates inside buildings also plays an important factor. It is evident that you will need dedicated in-building (IB) solutions to provide high-speed data service on UMTS and especially when deploying HSDPA/HSUPA high-speed data services.

This book will focus mainly on the technical part of the evaluation, and design of IB solutions. However, even the most hardcore technical RF design engineer must realize that the main driver for any mobile network operator must be to increase the revenue factor. The purpose is to maximize the revenue of the network and to lower the production cost of the traffic. The cost of producing a call minute (CM) is a crucial factor for the mobile operator, and so is the production cost per Mb of data transmitted in the network.

3.1.1 Commercial and Technical Evaluation

First and foremost, the mobile operator must do a business evaluation, before even considering investing in any in-building coverage solution. The operator must use standard tools and metrics to evaluate the ...