Neighbour cell monitoring in a 3rd generation TDMA systems

This paper discuss the use of neighbour cell monitoring in 3rd generation TDMA systems. In GSM neighbour cell monitoring requires a constant power beacon carrier in each cell. The traffic channels which are allocated in this carrier can not use techniques like frequency hopping, power control or DTX, which will cause more interference to other users. Also constant power beacon carrier will lead to double the network planning. Several alternatives to handle neighbour cell monitoring are discussed. The most interesting one is found to be a beacon signal which is non-continuous and time hopping, because it decreases the transmitted interfering beacon signal power and also maintains the compatibility with GSM type monitoring. A non-continuous beacon signal increases the network capacity, because it causes less interference. By using GSM parameters this increment is estimated to be over 20%.