Capacity and Coverage Planning of DMR Trunking Radio Network for PPDR Services

Professional Mobile Radios (PMR) are very successful systems that are used for the mission critical communications during the last 25 years and have been trusted by a lot of Protection and Disaster Relief (PPDR) services globally. PMR systems refer to narrowband technologies such as TETRA, P-25 and Tetrapol which they meet the PPDR demands. The application of these standards in wide geographical areas with low population density, are expensive solutions for operational usage, to replace the analogue PMR systems that are still used by lots of PPDR Services. Amongst the upper successful professional PMR systems, the Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) trunking system, constitutes a very attractive and cost efficient solution for mission critical communications. Due to this economical technical balance DMR trunking technology seems to be capable of replacing the current analog radio communications, used by Hellenic PPDR Services. This study offers a realistic approach of radio coverage and also an accurate method for capacity planning for mission critical communications using the DMR standard. As a Service we choose the Fire Brigade due to its wider areas of action compared to the other Services. Moreover, we apply our investigation on the Attica region, which has the most incidents per year in all Hellenic territory. A result of this research is the investigation of geographic radio coverage using the current infrastructure sites and the examination of the target for 95% coverage that is the requirement for PPDR services. Furthermore, with the aim of a realistic scenario for PPDR services that we study, using real statistical data we estimate the capacity needs in traffic channels concluding that 44 DMR base stations and a spectrum about 1,100 Mhz are needed for our approach.