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

3.4 Common UMTS Rollout Mistakes

It is very tempting to place a nearby macro site close to one of these hot-spot buildings, especially when coming from a GSM radio planning background. Often the result is that the side of the building facing the macro site will have really high signal level. However, eventually there might still be some areas on the far side and in the basement that still have an insufficient coverage level.

3.4.1 The Macro Mistake

The classic example is a shopping mall; these are usually important hot-spot buildings with many users, and therefore on the top of the list when prioritizing the roll-out plan. A macro site just across the street from the shopping mall could be a perfect solution, or is it? Typically the operator will realize that sufficient indoor coverage is still lacking in large areas inside the building, especially for HSPA data service.

The capacity needed inside the building might also exceed the resources on the macro site, mainly due to the high power load per user inside the building. Then the operator realizes that the next step is an indoor UMTS solution.

3.4.2 Do Not Apply GSM Strategies

Trying to cover a shopping mall from the outdoor macro mast is tempting, but this is the GSM experience that kicks in; this is how the GSM network has been and is still being planned. However, this mindset is expensive to use for UMTS radio planning, because after implementing the indoor UMTS system in the building, the operator will now realize that about ...