Indoor Wireless Communications

8Capacity Planning and Dimensioning

Capacity determines to a great extent the service availability and hence impacts on the quality-of-service of a radio network. For example, to be able to establish a call or a successful data connection anytime, anywhere in a building, from a user's point of view, is a subjective measure of network quality. Nowadays with the increasing growth of data traffic, this necessity can be aggravated if users are not able to establish reliable connections at the speed they require, thus affecting a user's experience. Both situations are definitely reflected in an operator's revenue, as more satisfied customers will attract more users and, likewise, poor quality-of-service, measured as blocked calls, does not encourage customers to continue utilizing the network.

The calculation of the number of channels needed to cater for the capacity requirements of the users in a specific building is to be reviewed here, once the number of users and type of users is determined, as well as the traffic profile that is expected. This approach has also to account for possible system expansions and expected growth in the number of users or subscribers over time. There are special considerations that need to be made for indoor systems and that differ from those used in outdoor networks, in particular for those challenging venues having a large number of users for peak time periods (stadiums, airports, etc.). These will be emphasized in this chapter.

In general, every ...