Radio planning tools for mobile radio services

Discusses how the phenomenal growth of cellular radio in the UK posed a real challenge for the radio planners. They had two main objectives, the first is system roll-out, i.e. additional cells for extending the system geographical coverage. The second is providing high capacity within areas already served by introducing new cells into existing coverage areas. In almost three years Cellnet has grown to a nationwide system providing service to well over 90% of the UK population from some 370 base stations, it is still growing at a rate approaching three new sites a week. Besides radio coverage, the planners had to address the issues of intra-system interference. To underline the importance of interference management it is probably sufficient to mention the fact that in London, within the M25, a radio channel is likely to be reused more than 10 times. While in Central London cochanneled sites can be less than two miles apart. A task of such scale requires effective radio planning resources supported by state-of-the-art planning tolls, such tools include radio survey facilities, and reliable prediction techniques. In Cellnet some enhanced planning tools in the form of user friendly software planning packages have been introduced.<
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