Fundamentals of Next-generation Network Planning

TL;DR

This paper explores fundamental methods for planning 5G networks, focusing on balancing coverage and capacity, using data-driven strategies and pragmatic modeling to optimize deployment costs and ensure quality of experience.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive approach to 5G network planning that combines radio network dimensioning, pragmatic modeling, and data analysis to improve deployment efficiency.

Findings

Effective coverage-capacity trade-offs identified

Data-driven strategies reduce deployment costs

Pragmatic NR modeling enhances planning accuracy

Abstract

The fifth-generation (5G) of cellular communications is expected to be deployed in the next years to support a wide range of services with different demands of peak data rates, latency and quality of experience (QoE). To support higher data rates and latency requirements third-generation partnership project (3GPP) has introduced numerology and bandwidth parts (BWPs), via new radio (NR) for service-tailored resource allocation. Legacy 4G networks have generated extensive data, which combined with crowd-sourced LTE infrastructure insights, enables identification of high-traffic 5G deployment area (5GDA) for planning new services. Given the mission-critical nature of 5G services, QoE is a big challenge for MNOs to guarantee peak data rates for a defined percentage of time. This work studies the fundamentals of 5G network planning methods that reconciles coverage-capacity trade-offs through balanced radio network dimensioning (RND), leveraging pragmatic NR modeling, and data-driven strategies to minimize deployment costs and reduce cost-per-bit.