Analytical characterization of the soft handover gain in UMTS

We present an analytical model for computing the interference distribution in a third generation UMTS network. Our main focus lies on quantifying the interference reduction due to the combination of the power control signals from multiple base stations when the mobile stations are in soft handover. Our model also includes upper bounds of the mobile's transmission power, i.e. outage is considered. These effects influence the coverage areas and, therefore, play an important role in the planning of UMTS networks.