Basics of Network Dimensioning and Planning

This chapter looks at how a mobile communication network is dimensioned and planned, to provide services to a target population. It explores some of the basic principles governing radio signal propagation. The chapter also looks at the fundamental behaviour of signal, noise and interference power. It describes the link budget components in detail and demonstrates how to build a link budget for an LTE system. The chapter focuses more on the dimensioning process, to understand how coverage and capacity is provisioned in radio access network as well as in the backhaul (and fronthaul) transport network. It discusses the steps involved in the network planning process with specific planning software. The chapter looks at the challenges and techniques for 5G radio access network dimensioning and planning more generally.