Chapter 3
Market Modeling
3.1 Introduction
Detailed market modeling (MM) is essential for wireless designs as it provides information about network users, their location and traffic demand. It also details the operators' offering and matches it to the subscribers' demand. This data will then be used in dimensioning the network and evaluating its performance. A Wireless Design Planning Tool (WDPT) is essential to create and store this data.
In this book we use the following definitions for the relationship between the population and the wireless operating company:
- Clients or customers: defines people or businesses that can be potentially served by a wireless operator.
- Subscribers: defines people or companies that have subscribed to the service.
- Users: persons who use the service through a subscription, as there may be one or more persons using the same wireless subscription.
The business plan gives general guidelines about the target population and types of services to be provided. Market modeling has to detail this information so it can be used in the design process. Data for MM can be obtained from many different sources, such as statistical institutes, geographical services, tax departments, transit departments, commercial credit companies. This data is valuable, but comes in different formats and needs to be converted to the WDPT format.
Collected data does not provide all the information and the designer has to estimate many values. This can be done based on judgment alone, ...
