What frequency bandwidth to run cellular network in a given country? - a downlink dimensioning problem

TL;DR

This paper introduces an analytical model for determining the necessary frequency bandwidth for cellular networks across different regions, considering urbanization, technology, and path-loss, validated with real network data.

Contribution

It presents a novel analytical approach to frequency bandwidth dimensioning that accounts for geographic and technological variations, enabling uniform solutions across regions.

Findings

Performance of typical cells is similar when serving the same traffic demand across different areas.

The model accurately predicts bandwidth needs validated by real network measurements.

Uniform dimensioning can be achieved using the mean cell approach across diverse regions.

Abstract

We propose an analytic approach to the frequency bandwidth dimensioning problem, faced by cellular network operators who deploy/upgrade their networks in various geographical regions (countries) with an inhomogeneous urbanization. We present a model allowing one to capture fundamental relations between users' quality of service parameters (mean downlink throughput), traffic demand, the density of base station deployment, and the available frequency bandwidth. These relations depend on the applied cellular technology (3G or 4G impacting user peak bit-rate) and on the path-loss characteristics observed in different (urban, sub-urban and rural) areas. We observe that if the distance between base stations is kept inversely proportional to the distance coefficient of the path-loss function, then the performance of the typical cells of these different areas is similar when serving the same (per-cell) traffic demand. In this case, the frequency bandwidth dimensioning problem can be solved uniformly across the country applying the mean cell approach proposed in [Blaszczyszyn et al. WiOpt2014] http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/WIOPT.2014.6850355 . We validate our approach by comparing the analytical results to measurements in operational networks in various geographical zones of different countries.