Radio Access Network Dimensioning for 3G UMTS

This thesis investigates the dimensioning of the UMTS Radio Access Network with specific focus on the Iub interface, which connects the Node B and the RNC. This interface is considered as one of the most important economic factors for the UMTS network dimensioning. This thesis provides an elaborate analysis of important aspects related to UMTS radio access network dimensioning and based on that presents a general UMTS network dimensioning framework and procedure. The dimensioning of the Iub interface is investigated in detail for different traffic scenarios, evolutions of UMTS radio access networks, transport technologies, QoS mechanisms and network topologies. Furthermore, for different traffic and network scenarios a number of novel analytical models, algorithms and approaches are proposed to appropriately dimension the Iub interface in order to achieve the maximum utilization of the transport resources while guaranteeing a required /Quality of Service (/QoS). For performance analysis and evaluations, as well as for validating these proposed analytical models, several simulation models are developed in this thesis to model different UMTS radio access networks following the 3GPP specifications. By performing extensive simulations and analysis of the simulation results, important dimensioning rules are derived and the proposed analytical models are demonstrated. For the practical dimensioning process, a dimensioning tool is implemented in this work to summarize all the developed analytical models. The developed dimensioning tool can perform the network dimensioning for various traffic scenarios, transport solutions, QoS mechanisms and network topologies for different UMTS radio access networks. Overall, all investigations and analytical dimensioning models presented in this thesis can help network service providers or operators to optimize their network infrastructure to reduce the transport costs while still being able to offer a desired quality of service.