UMTS EASYCOPE: a tool for UMTS network and algorithm evaluation

For the UMTS radio access network, the problems of dimensioning/planning and algorithm evaluation/optimization is a challenging task, which requires methods and tools that are essentially different from the ones applied for 2nd generation systems. In order to generate reliable results for the highly flexible and dynamic UMTS, sophisticated simulation tools have to be applied. A UMTS model and its implementation is described. It allows an efficient evaluation of UMTS in terms of system performance figures such as capacity, coverage and QoS.