Cell Coverage Optimisation: Down-tilt Plan Calculation Algorithm

Advanced Network Development Centre
CELL COVERAGE
OPTIMISATION
DOWNTILT PLAN CALCULATION ALGORITHM
Review 1.0
February 2000
Abstract: This paper describes the procedure proposed to calculate the down-tilt value to be
applied to the antennae of a particular site, based on field measurements of the real network and the
knowledge of the geometry of the system.
MOTOROLA CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY

Cell Coverage Optimisation
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS ..............................................................................................................................I
LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................................... II
LIST OF EQUATIONS..............................................................................................................................III
SIGN-OFF FORM ......................................................................................................................................IV
HISTORY OF REVISIONS.......................................................................................................................IV
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................ 1
SUMMARY OF THE PROCESS................................................................................................................ 3
INPUT DATA REQUIRED ......................................................................................................................... 4

SITE INFORMATION ............................................................................................................................... 4
SERVER-NEIGHBOUR ANALYSIS DATA............................................................................................ 4
TABULAR ANTENNAE PATTERNS...................................................................................................... 6
DESCRIPTION OF THE PROCESS ......................................................................................................... 7
GEOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM ...................................................................................... 7
DISTANCE TO THE NEIGHBOURS ..................................................................................................... 7
RECIPROCAL ORIENTATION .............................................................................................................. 8
AREA OF INFLUENCE.......................................................................................................................... 9
UMBRELLA DETECTION TEST.......................................................................................................... 11
NEIGHBOUR SCREENING.................................................................................................................... 13
GEOMETRIC CRITERION .................................................................................................................. 13
TRAFFIC DISRUPTION CRITERION ................................................................................................. 16
NEIGHBOUR C/I CALCULATION........................................................................................................ 17
BACKGROUND.................................................................................................................................... 17
CALCULATION OF C/I AND REQUIRED ADDITIONAL PATH-LOSS ............................................ 18
STANDARD QUALIFICATION............................................................................................................ 21
UMBRELLA QUALIFICATION ........................................................................................................... 22
DOWN-TILT CALCULATION............................................................................................................... 22
WEIGHTED DOWN-TILT DECISION................................................................................................... 24
VALIDATION PROCESS ......................................................................................................................... 26
DOWN-TILT CALCULATION TESTS .................................................................................................. 26
BRNO SYSTEM VALIDATION TEST ................................................................................................... 26
ANKARA SYSTEM VALIDATION TEST............................................................................................... 29
DOWN-TILT IMPLEMENTATION TESTS........................................................................................... 31
CONCLUSIONS ...................................................................................................................................... 38
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Coverage problems affecting network quality ................................................................................ 1
Figure 2: Block diagram of the down-tilt methodology.................................................................................. 3
Figure 3: Geographical information required in the analysis........................................................................ 4
Figure 4: Server-Neighbour analysis data obtained from CTP...................................................................... 5
Figure 5: Vertical antenna pattern (Tabular digital format).......................................................................... 6
Figure 6: Calculation of distance between sites ............................................................................................. 7
Figure 7: Relative orientation of the sites....................................................................................................... 8
Figure 8: Distance and orientation angles for the practical case .................................................................. 9
Figure 9: Definition of areas of influence....................................................................................................... 9
Figure 10: Areas of Influence for the real example, and qualification of the neighbours ............................ 10
Figure 11: Definition of the cell neighbourhood .......................................................................................... 11
Figure 12: Elevation reference plane ........................................................................................................... 12
Figure 13: Umbrella test. “Peak above Terrain” ........................................................................................ 12
Figure 14: Overlap area between front to front neighbours ........................................................................ 13
Figure 15: Neighbour exclusion procedure.................................................................................................. 14
Figure 16: Overlap area produced by umbrella cells over back to front neighbours .................................. 15
Figure 17: Neighbour exclusion procedure for umbrella cells..................................................................... 15
Figure 18: Presence of the server cell in the qualified neighbours .............................................................. 16
Figure 19: Traffic disruption criterion and screening process result........................................................... 17
Figure 20: Geometry of the Server-Neighbour path..................................................................................... 17
Figure 21: C/I ratio over the Server-Neighbour path................................................................................... 18
Figure 22: Estimation of the current C/I ratio based on CTP analysis of MRs............................................ 19
Figure 23: 10% and 90% C/I ratios for the example.................................................................................... 20
Figure 24: C/I profiles for qualified neighbours as a function of the percentage of MRs............................ 21
Figure 25: Improvement on C/I ratio required............................................................................................. 22
Figure 26: Schema of the vertical radiation pattern for the antenna ........................................................... 23
Figure 27: Geometry of the problem in the current situation (Old down-tilt) .............................................. 23
Figure 28: Steps to calculate the new antenna down-tilt.............................................................................. 24
Figure 29: Down-tilt calculation for the example ........................................................................................ 24
Figure 30: Presence of the server cell in the qualified neighbours .............................................................. 25
Figure 31: Importance and weight of qualified neighbours ......................................................................... 25
Figure 32: Calculation of the final down-tilt value ...................................................................................... 25
Figure 33: Comparison of the algorithm results with the previous proposal for Brno system..................... 26
Figure 34: Timing advance distribution of umbrella cells ........................................................................... 27
Figure 35: Down-tilt proposal for the Brno area under analysis ................................................................. 28
Figure 36: Down-tilt proposal for the Ankara area under analysis ............................................................. 31
Figure 37: Down-tilt changes in selected cells of Prague area.................................................................... 31
Figure 38: C/I modifications in selected cells of Prague area ..................................................................... 32
Figure 39: Modification of C/I profile after down-tilt for cell 00277........................................................... 33
Figure 44: Call performance comparison in the set of cells with down-tilt changes ................................... 36
Figure 45: Dropped calls performance comparison in the set of cells with down-tilt changes.................... 36
Figure 46: Handover distribution before the down-tilt changes .................................................................. 37
Figure 47: Handover distribution after the down-tilt changes ..................................................................... 37
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LIST OF EQUATIONS
Equation 1: Formulas to calculate the distance between sites ....................................................................... 7
Equation 2: Orientation angles between server and neighbour ..................................................................... 8
Equation 3: Calculation of the areas of influence for a 3-cell site ............................................................... 10
Equation 4: “Peak above Terrain” calculation............................................................................................ 12
Equation 5: Estimation of current C/I ratio.................................................................................................. 19
Equation 6: Estimation of current C/I ratio.................................................................................................. 21
Equation 7: Server antenna ! Neighbour location vision angle................................................................. 23
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SIGN-OFF FORM
Author: Fernando Sancho Signature: Date: 16th Feb. 2000

Revised: Roberto García Signature: Date: 16th Feb. 2000
Revised: Javier Escamilla Signature: Date: 16th Feb. 2000
Revised: Javier Rodrigo Signature: Date: 16th Feb. 2000
HISTORY OF REVISIONS
Revision Date Author Revised by Changes Description
Roberto García
0.1 08/06/99 Fernando Sancho First version
Javier Escamilla
Roberto García Inclusion of results from the

0.2 05/07/99 Fernando Sancho
Javier Escamilla validation process
Modifications to the algorithm, and

Roberto García
0.3 31/08/99 Fernando Sancho improvement in the selection of the
Javier Escamilla
final value for the down-tilt
Addition of an improvement in the

algorithm that detects the umbrella
Roberto García
cells and calculates the down-tilt.
0.4 30/09/99 Fernando Sancho Javier Escamilla
Javier Rodrigo
Inclusion of the final result of the
validation process.
Inclusion of validation results after

the implementation of the down-tilt
changes proposed for a test system.
Roberto García
1.0 16/02/00 Fernando Sancho Javier Escamilla
Slight modification of the formula to
Javier Rodrigo
calculate the required C/I
improvement in order to better fit the
field results.
Revision 1.0 MOTOROLA CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY Page iv

INTRODUCTION
The quality and capacity of a dense system is limited by the interference caused by the frequency
reuse. The carrier to interference ratio (C/I) is widely accepted as the indicator to estimate the quality
expected in the system. The interference level suffered by a particular call changes depending on whether
the frequency is being used by another call in some nearby cell and also according to the distance with the
interference source, its level, etc.
Capacity constraints appearing in most of the urban areas have pushed frequency hopping as the
technique, widely deployed, to provide the required density of offered traffic. The use of this technique sets
changes the behaviour of the interference in the system: In a conventional system with fixed frequency
plan, a call potentially receives interference from a small number of calls whereas the number of potential
interfering cells in a system with frequency hopping is higher.
The principle based on which capacity can be increased with frequency hopping is to spread the
interference among many calls of potential interfering cells and reuse the frequencies in a more closely
way. Standard frequency reuses implemented with frequency hopping are one-site reuse (normally referred
as 1x3) or one-cell reuse (normally referred as 1x1). This situation of tighter reuse patterns and more
potential interfering cells leads to a noisy environment where the performance of the system is determined
by the possibilities to keep interference under control.
Under this challenging scenario, it is very important to control and restrict the coverage of the
cells to the useful zone where the cell effectively is the server. Radiation introduced in points where the cell
is not required to serve represent interference, that is more harmful as the frequency reuse becomes tighter.
In these dense urban environments, the most usual problems that affect the coverage on the network and
degrade the quality provided to the subscriber are depicted in Figure 1:
Umbrella Cell
Overshooting
Communication
Interference
Overlap
Figure 1: Coverage problems affecting network quality
Excessive overlap caused by cells covering an area bigger than the zone where they are dominant
and serving is directly translated into interference when tight reuse patterns are used (one-site or one-cell
reuses), because useless power is radiated to areas where other cells are serving. This overlap is particularly
harmful when the signal of a cell reaches areas far away from the site with high level (overshooting),
causing downlink interference, and receiving uplink interference from mobiles far away.
The presence of sites placed in dominant places (high areas, hills, etc.) that have become umbrella
cells causes a big impact in the quality because they create areas with huge overlap between cells that
represent high level of interference and overshooting situations.
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As part of the work that may be done to minimise the previous effects, one of the most important
and easiest activity is the down-tilt adjustment on the antennae in order to tailor the coverage to the useful
area (changes of antenna type can also be required in some cases). So far, the approaches to perform this
activity have been based on simulations obtained from prediction tools, and most commonly on subjective
estimations backed up by the knowledge of the network.
The present document introduces an automatic method to decide the necessity of adjustments and
calculate the optimum value for the antennae down-tilt. The methodology proposed, based on real data
measured in the live system (measurement reports), carries out a geometrical analysis of the topology and
introduces particular constraints and assumptions to achieve a final solution that improves the C/I pattern in
the system.
The rest of the document will concentrate on the detailed description of the method proposed,
illustrated with an example extracted from a live system. Some of the results obtained from the validation
of the process with different systems are included as an appendix at the end of the document.

SUMMARY OF THE PROCESS

The methodology proposed to carry out the down-tilt adjustment in the network is a process of
sequential steps applied to all the cells in the system. The block diagram that describes the process is
presented in Figure 2.
Antennae Patterns
GEOMETRIC NEIGHBOUR N th DOWNTILT WEIGHTED

Site
DOWNTILT Down-tilt
Information ANALYSIS SCREENING CALCULATOR
DECISION
N th NEIGHBOUR
C/I CALCULATOR
Server-Neighbour
Analysis Data
Figure 2: Block diagram of the down-tilt methodology
As depicted in the diagram, the procedure to obtain the down-tilt value of a particular cell
comprises five mayor steps that involve information from the cell itself and its reported neighbours. The
rest of the document describes in detail all the blocks and calculations made inside them. As a brief
description:
" Input Data

" Calculation Process
1. Geometric analysis of the system:
• Distance between sites
• Reciprocal orientation of the sites
• Detection of umbrella cells
2. Neighbour screening:
• Exclude the neighbours that are not significant in the analysis (geometric
criterion)
• Discard irrelevant neighbours (traffic disruption criterion)
3. Neighbour C/I calculation:
• Estimate the average C/I ratio for every Server-Neighbour (n) path
• Calculate the C/I profile (variability) along the Server-Neighbour (n) path
4. Determination of the down-tilt for every Server-Neighbour relationship
5. Calculate the weight of all the relevant neighbours and implement a weighted
decision of the unique final down-tilt value.
" Output Result

INPUT DATA REQUIRED

The resolution of the problem proposed (calculate the down-tilt) with the constraints of using real
data reported by the mobiles requires the perfect knowledge of the system as well as the availability of the
proper data from the live network. The methodology described, and the algorithms for calculations and
decisions are applied to different types of raw data that need to be supplied to the program.
Following there is a description of the different kinds of data with a detailed list of all the
parameters used by the algorithms.
SITE INFORMATION
In order to use geometric algorithms it is required to have all the details to accurately define the
network topology. For this purpose, the geographical information of the sites (elevation, location,
identification) and technical details of the antennae (model, beam width, height, orientation, tilt) need to be
available. The table of Figure 3 lists all the parameters required for every cell.
cell_name lac Cell ID bsic bcch Site Ant. old Ant. V/H latitude longitude Ant.
Eleva Height tilt Model BW Orienta
Akyuz-3 3120 17043 48 45 853 32 3 K730368 13/65 39.9429847 32.8502531 230
Iskitlertt-2 3120 16792 50 43 842 20 6 K736866 7/90 39.9563889 32.8444444 240
Imodsan-1 3120 16921 52 41 869 23 0 K730368 13/65 39.9530556 32.7802778 70
Akyuz-2 3120 17042 48 40 853 32 0 K730368 13/65 39.9429847 32.8502531 130
Diskapi-2 3120 17052 53 30 860 25 3 K730360 27/65 39.9519444 32.8588889 240
Akman-1 3120 17301 53 65 860 25 0 K730360 27/65 39.9363167 32.8566633 135
Dikmen-1 3121 16731 48 66 1040 27 0 K730368 13/65 39.8849953 32.8355489 110
Emek-2 3121 17102 48 44 890 32 0 K730368 13/65 39.9196817 32.815175 160
Ovecler-1 3121 17111 50 48 970 20 0 K730368 13/65 39.8944167 32.8298611 130
Anittepe-1 3121 17241 53 25 885 18 0 K730360 27/65 39.9235556 32.8393333 0
Anittepe-3 3121 17243 53 79 885 18 0 K730368 13/65 39.9235556 32.8393333 240
Ataturkoc-1 3121 17251 53 21 851 18 0 K730360 27/65 39.9401631 32.80399 70
Ataturkoc-3 3121 17253 52 30 851 18 0 K730360 27/65 39.9401631 32.80399 350
Bahceliev-1 3121 23251 49 23 885 25 0 K730360 27/65 39.9280556 32.8254208 60
Bilkent-2 3124 17022 55 49 1007 20 3 K730368 13/65 39.8751667 32.7556389 120
Figure 3: Geographical information required in the analysis
SERVER-NEIGHBOUR ANALYSIS DATA
Data collected from the live network need to be aggregated and analysed in order to get a signal
strength distribution for every server-neighbour relationship in order to calculate the C/I to characterise the
path profile. For the down-tilt calculation on a particular cell, the bi-directional analyses of all the server-
neighbour relationships are required.
CTP (Call Trace Product) tool has the ability to produce the required files when the source reports
are collected with the call trace functionality of the BSS. The typical file format generated by this tool is

presented in Figure 4, and gives the distribution of the server reports, and the difference in dB with the
neighbour in any report. These files will be used to calculate the C/I ratios for the different server-
neighbour relationships.
It is necessary as well to account for the absolute number of reports available for every server-
neighbour pair in order to determine the weight of all the neighbours in a particular server cell. The output
generated by CTP tool contains as well this information.
Cell Identifier: LAC - 2161 CI - 10062
X Parameter: RXLEV (NON PC) DOWNLINK

Y Parameter: NEIGHBOUR DETECTION BSIC: 50 BCCH: 49
Number of Reports: 3428
DL RxLev 0 1 2 3 4 5 … … 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 …
N-S (dB)
-20 0 0 0 0 0 0 … … 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 …
-19 0 0 0 0 0 0 … … 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 …
… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
-3 0 0 0 0 0 0 … … 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 …
-2 0 0 0 0 0 0 … … 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 …
-1 0 0 0 0 0 0 … … 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 …
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 … … 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 …
1 0 0 0 0 0 0 … … 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 …
2 0 0 0 0 0 0 … … 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 …
3 0 0 0 0 0 0 … … 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 …
… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
19 0 0 0 0 0 0 … … 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 …
20 0 0 0 0 0 0 … … 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 …
Figure 4: Server-Neighbour analysis data obtained from CTP
The down-tilt analysis for one particular cell S will make use of multiple files of this type, one for
everyone of all the following relationships between the server S and its reported neighbours N (1 to n):
• Server: Server S Neighbour: Neighbour N1

• Server: Server S Neighbour: Neighbour N2
• … …
• Server: Server S Neighbour: Neighbour Nn
• Server: Neighbour N1 Neighbour: Server S

• Server: Neighbour N2 Neighbour: Server S
• … …
• Server: Neighbour Nn Neighbour: Server S

TABULAR ANTENNAE PATTERNS
Considering that the final objective of the process is to provide an angle value to down-tilt the
antenna, the information of its characteristics is absolutely essential. The identity of the antenna is
accurately specified knowing its radiation pattern, so the method makes use of it to calculate the effect on
the interference (C/I patterns) caused by any down-tilt angle, and vice-versa.
Horizontal and vertical radiation patterns will be required in a digital tabular format to decide the
down-tilt value according to the needed overlap reduction and the type of antenna. Files with the values of
attenuation respect to the maximum, available at angular positions with 1 degree of resolution will be
required. Figure 5 contains an example of this type information for the vertical orientation (the format is
very dependent on the manufacturer and/or the tool that handles these files).
K730368, gain 13.4 dBd, frequency 900.0, beam width 65.00, tilt MECHANICAL
Name = K730368
Number of Points
180
Start Ang. = -90
Range = 39.26000
Increment = 1.00
Orientation = VERTICAL
-21.47 -21.34 -21.21 -21.07 -20.94 -20.81 -20.7 -20.58 -20.47 -20.35
-20.24 -20.17 -20.1 -20.03 -19.96 -19.89 -19.91 -19.94 -19.96 -19.99
-20.01 -20.16 -20.3 -20.45 -20.59 -20.74 -21.07 -21.4 -21.72 -22.05
-22.38 -23.03 -23.69 -24.34 -25 -25.65 -27.52 -29.39 -31.27 -33.14
-35.01 -33.99 -32.97 -31.96 -30.94 -29.92 -28.36 -26.8 -25.25 -23.69
-22.13 -22.12 -22.11 -22.09 -22.08 -22.07 -25.51 -28.95 -32.38 -35.82
-39.26 -34.81 -30.37 -25.92 -21.48 -17.03 -16.46 -15.89 -15.32 -14.75
-14.18 -16.02 -17.86 -19.71 -21.55 -23.39 -20.39 -17.38 -14.38 -11.37
-8.37 -7.03 -5.7 -4.36 -3.03 -1.69 -1.35 -1.01 -0.68 -0.34
0 -0.38 -0.76 -1.14 -1.52 -1.9 -3.23 -4.56 -5.9 -7.23
-8.56 -10.97 -13.38 -15.78 -18.19 -20.6 -19.36 -18.12 -16.89 -15.65
-14.41 -15.04 -15.68 -16.31 -16.95 -17.58 -20.85 -24.11 -27.38 -30.64
-33.91 -31.8 -29.7 -27.59 -25.49 -23.38 -23.29 -23.2 -23.12 -23.03
-22.94 -23.97 -25 -26.03 -27.06 -28.09 -29.43 -30.77 -32.12 -33.46
-34.8 -33.59 -32.38 -31.16 -29.95 -28.74 -27.81 -26.88 -25.96 -25.03
-24.1 -23.6 -23.1 -22.59 -22.09 -21.59 -21.34 -21.09 -20.85 -20.6
-20.35 -20.28 -20.2 -20.13 -20.05 -19.98 -20.02 -20.06 -20.09 -20.13
-20.17 -20.28 -20.39 -20.51 -20.62 -20.73 -20.84 -20.95 -21.07 -21.18
-21.71
Figure 5: Vertical antenna pattern (Tabular digital format)

DESCRIPTION OF THE PROCESS

This section covers the description of all the algorithms, formulas and criteria used in the process
carried out to obtain the down-tilt value for a certain cell that has a particular set of neighbours. The whole
process will take the input data described in the previous section and produce as an output the integer value
that represents the down-tilt to apply to the antennae in the cell under analysis.
The procedure is divided into several steps, and all of them are illustrated with an example taken
from a real system. The blocks presented in Figure 2 are explained next in detail.
GEOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM
The objective of this part of the process is to calculate some indicators related with the topology of
the network to make possible the study of the problem from a geometric point of view. A set of parameters
is calculated for every server cell considering the neighbours reported in the data collected from the system.
DISTANCE TO THE NEIGHBOURS
The first step in this geometric analysis is to calculate the distance between the server and the
neighbours. It is important to calculate it properly since at the end the calculation of the down-tilt will make
use of this distance.
The location of the sites will be commonly provided by the Longitude and Latitude co-ordinates,
so it is required a proper formula to calculate the distance, considering that, equal differences in longitude
can lead to different distances because as the latitude increases, the parallels have shorter length. The
appropriate formulas are listed in Equation 1, with the criteria explained in Figure 6.
Server
− 90º ≤ L ≤ 90º (+ For Latitude North)
Distance d − 180º ≤ W ≤ 180º (+ For Longitude East)
(WS , LS)
Neighbour
(WN , LN)
Figure 6: Calculation of distance between sites
ψ = Cos −1 [SinL S ⋅ SinL N + CosL S ⋅ CosL N ⋅ Cos (WS − W N )]
d =ψ ⋅ R Where ψ is in radians and R = 6370 Km
Equation 1: Formulas to calculate the distance between sites
The table of Figure 8 contains an example of a cell with 14 neighbours and the distances
calculated according to the previous formulas.

RECIPROCAL ORIENTATION
The neighbour screening process that will is described in the next section is based on the
orientation and location of the neighbours. In order to decide the influence of a particular neighbour in the
calculation of the down-tilt, it is necessary to know the relative orientations between server and neighbour.
In order to make easier the screening process, a unique absolute reference direction has been defined and
fixed to 0º (North direction), and two angles for each Server-Neighbour pair are calculated (180º difference
between them).
North
θSN
Server North
Neighbour
θNS
Figure 7: Relative orientation of the sites
Those angles are calculated with the formulas listed in Equation 2:
 SinL N − SinLS ⋅ Cosψ   SinLS − SinL N ⋅ Cosψ 

θ SN = Cos −1   θ NS = Cos −1  
 CosL S ⋅ Sinψ   CosL N ⋅ Sinψ 
Equation 2: Orientation angles between server and neighbour
At this point it is necessary to solve the ambiguity with the angle provided by the Cos-1 function
by checking the square where the angle will be placed based on their differences in latitude and longitude.
Considering that this function will return a value belonging to the interval [0,180], the real orientation angle
will be obtained as:
WN > WS and LN > LS: θ SN = θSN

*
•
WN > WS and LN < LS: θ SN = θSN
*
•
WN < WS and LN < LS: θ SN = 360º - θSN
*
•
WN < WS and LN > LS: θ SN = 360º - θSN
*
•
Where the value θSN is the one given by the formulas of Equation 2 and θ SN is the one indicating
*
the real orientation. The same criterion will be followed for the calculation of the orientation neighbour-
server.
The table of Figure 8 contains these orientation angles calculated for the example of Figure 1.
Note that those angles have no sense for neighbours located at the same site as the server cell.

cell_id latitude longitude Dist [S-N] (Km) Angle [S -> N] (º) Angle [N -> S] (º)
Server 17043 39.9429847 32.8502531
Neigh 1 16792 39.9563889 32.8444444 1.570327327 341.6248997 161.6211698
Neigh 2 16921 39.9530556 32.7802778 6.068300398 280.6549824 100.6100518
Neigh 3 17042 39.9429847 32.8502531 0 N/A N/A
Neigh 4 17052 39.9519444 32.8588889 1.238554774 36.45863119 216.4641761
Neigh 5 17301 39.9363167 32.8566633 0.920948381 143.6048363 323.6089516
Neigh 6 16731 39.8849953 32.8355489 6.567916224 191.0106672 11.00123242
Neigh 7 17102 39.9196817 32.815175 3.956657715 229.1077465 49.08523095
Neigh 8 17111 39.8944167 32.8298611 5.672723916 197.8560272 17.84294167
Neigh 9 17241 39.9235556 32.8393333 2.352134797 203.3177542 23.31074488
Neigh 10 17243 39.9235556 32.8393333 2.352134797 203.3177542 23.31074488
Neigh 11 17251 39.9401631 32.80399 3.955910941 265.4665982 85.43689699
Neigh 12 17253 39.9401631 32.80399 3.955910941 265.4665982 85.43689699
Neigh 13 23251 39.9280556 32.8254208 2.689994831 231.9091538 51.89321334
Neigh 14 17022 39.8751667 32.7556389 11.04324465 226.9710361 46.91033433
Figure 8: Distance and orientation angles for the practical case
AREA OF INFLUENCE
The influence of a particular neighbour in the determination of the down-tilt required in a

particular serving cell would depend on both, the relative orientation of the server and neighbour sites, and
the orientation of the antennae within the sites. Neighbours orientated face to face with the server will be
more important than the ones located back to front, front to back or back to back.
In order to classify the neighbours according to their importance to determine the down-tilt, it is
necessary to define, on a per cell basis, what is called “Area of Influence”. Figure 9 illustrates this idea.
Cell 1
θ1
θ31 θ12
Area of Influence
for the cell 2
θ3 θ2 Cell 2
Cell 3
Horizontal BW
θ23
Figure 9: Definition of areas of influence

This area of influence is defined in the following way:
• Serving cell: Set of angular directions through which the cell introduces interference to other
cells.
• Neighbour cell: Set of angular directions through which the cell receives interference coming
from other cells.
The size of these areas will depend on the number of cells existing in the site and the type of
antenna installed. For example, Omni-directional sites will have as area of influence the interval [0º,360º].
Considering the standard case of 3-cell sites, the definition of the areas of influence will be done
calculating the bisectrix of the angles between the antennae orientations, and the formulas to calculate them
are described in Equation 3.
θ1 + θ 2 θ2 + θ3 θ + (θ 1 + 360º ) 
θ 12 = θ 23 = θ 31 =  3 
2 2  2  360 º
Area _ Cell _ 1 = [θ 31 , θ 12 ] Area _ Cell _ 2 = [θ 12 , θ 23 ] Area _ Cell _ 3 = [θ 23 , θ 31 ]
Equation 3: Calculation of the areas of influence for a 3-cell site
For a regular sector orientation in the site (0º, 120º, 240º), the use of the formulas of Equation 3
will result in areas of influence: [300º,60º] for cell 1, [60º,180º] for cell 2 and [180º,300º] for cell 3. In the
formulas of Equation 3 it is assumed that the angular discontinuity is between θ1 and θ3.
In the example used in this paper, the table with the areas of influence is presented in Figure 10.
(The information about orientation of all the cells within the site, and the type of antennae is required to
calculate them).
Antenna Angle Angle Area of

cell_id latitude longitude Qualify
Orientation [S -> N] (º) [N -> S] (º) Influence
Server 17043 39.9429847 32.8502531 230 [180,305]
Neigh 1 16792 39.9563889 32.8444444 240 341.6248997 161.6211698 [150,290] NO
Neigh 2 16921 39.9530556 32.7802778 70 280.6549824 100.6100518 [20,135] YES
Neigh 3 17042 39.9429847 32.8502531 130 N/A N/A [75,180] NO
Neigh 4 17052 39.9519444 32.8588889 240 36.45863119 216.4641761 [192.5,285] NO
Neigh 5 17301 39.9363167 32.8566633 135 143.6048363 323.6089516 [52.5,232.5] NO
Neigh 6 16731 39.8849953 32.8355489 110 191.0106672 11.00123242 [0,145] YES
Neigh 7 17102 39.9196817 32.815175 160 229.1077465 49.08523095 [90,205] NO
Neigh 8 17111 39.8944167 32.8298611 130 197.8560272 17.84294167 [55,170] NO
Neigh 9 17241 39.9235556 32.8393333 0 203.3177542 23.31074488 [300,62.5] YES
Neigh 10 17243 39.9235556 32.8393333 240 203.3177542 23.31074488 [182.5,300] NO
Neigh 11 17251 39.9401631 32.80399 70 265.4665982 85.43689699 [30,165] YES
Neigh 12 17253 39.9401631 32.80399 350 265.4665982 85.43689699 [305,30] NO
Neigh 13 23251 39.9280556 32.8254208 60 231.9091538 51.89321334 [295,115] YES
Neigh 14 17022 39.8751667 32.7556389 120 226.9710361 46.91033433 [60,170] NO
Figure 10: Areas of Influence for the real example, and qualification of the neighbours

UMBRELLA DETECTION TEST
Umbrella cells are a very special case of overlap between cells in the system because of the high
overlapping area affected and the high number of neighbours involved and affected by the potential
interference caused by them.
Another important point is that in the approach to reduce the overlap, the down-tilt adjustment is
the alternative used to tailor the coverage area of the cells. Umbrella cells produce an overlap pattern that
not always can be modified in the desired way by down-tilting the antennae, in short, there are cases where
a down-tilt increase does not improve the situation. For these cases, a reduction of the antenna height, a
change of antenna model or even to dismantle the umbrella cell will be the proper approach.
Keeping in mind these two aspects, the identification of this type of cells is a necessary task, and it
is worth to define some rules and criteria to classify a particular cell as an umbrella. Part of the cells
identified as that will be addressed with a down-tilt, and the rest will be marked as “umbrella” and a
different solution will be required.
The test to classify a cell as umbrella is based on geometrical rules, consisting mainly in
determining the cells whose antenna is located at a certain height over the surrounding environment.
Dominant cells will be candidates to be catalogued as umbrella cells, and some of the criteria to reduce the
overlap will be modified to address these situations.
The first step in this process is to define the size of the neighbourhood surrounding the cell that
will be considered to determine the elevation of the environment. The data from the environment are
discrete samples corresponding to the positions where the reported neighbours are located, so it is
necessary to exclude in this calculation the ones located far away from the site. Figure 11 describes the
situation.
Average +
Standard
Deviation
2 1
5
4
Cell
Neighbourhood
Average
Distance
6 3
Server
Reported Neighbours
Figure 11: Definition of the cell neighbourhood

The average and standard deviation of the distances from the server to the reported neighbours are
calculated, and only the neighbours whose distance is smaller than the average plus the standard deviation
belong to the cell neighbourhood (long distance neighbours are excluded).
Once that the distant neighbours have been filtered, the next step is to calculate the reference
height that characterises the neighbourhood elevation. The elevation of the closest neighbours will be used
as samples of the environment elevation, and the average and standard deviation will be calculated. In order
to be more accurate, the value used as reference height is the average plus the standard deviation. The
schema of Figure 12 illustrates the idea.
Average + Standard Average

Deviation Elevation
Server Neigh. 1&2 Neigh. 3 Neigh. 4&5 Neigh. 6

Figure 12: Elevation reference plane
Apart from the differences in elevation, it is necessary to consider the height of the antennae over
the ground. For this purpose, the antennae heights of the neighbours (excluding the distant ones) will be
represented by their average.
The final umbrella test is a set of basic calculations with all the values obtained before. The
elevation of the terrain at the server location plus the server antenna height is compared against a threshold
calculated as the addition of the average elevation of the neighbourhood, the standard deviation and the
average neighbour antenna height. The difference is referred as the “Peak above Terrain”, and its value
determines whether a cell is considered an umbrella or not. Figure 13 illustrates the idea and Equation 4
contains the expression for the “Peak above Terrain” calculation.
Peak above Terrain
Average Neighbour
Antenna Height
Server Neigh. 1&2 Neigh. 3 Neigh. 4&5 Neigh. 6
Figure 13: Umbrella test. “Peak above Terrain”
Peak _ above _ Terrain = (Eleva Server + Antenna Server ) −  Eleva Neighs + Eleva Neighs + Antenna Neighs 
  
Equation 4: “Peak above Terrain” calculation

In Equation 4, the average is denoted as (....) and the standard deviation as (....) .
The final decision to mark a particular cell as an umbrella cell is based on the value of the “Peak
above Terrain” parameter. The criterion considered is to compare that parameter with a margin fixed to 10
meters. This margin value is more critical for flat terrain since the standard deviation of the neighbour
elevations is a smaller value.
NEIGHBOUR SCREENING
The intended collection of representative data from the live network involves a process of test
neighbour definition, in order to get interference information in the whole frequency band. This process
leads to huge lists of reported neighbours for every serving cell that make difficult the identification of the
down-tilt value required. A method to reduce the amount of neighbours and identify the ones that must be
considered in the calculation of the down-tilt value is necessary.
There are two steps in the screening process, a geometric constraint and a traffic disruption
constraint.
GEOMETRIC CRITERION
The geometric criterion is based on the orientation angles in both directions (server to neighbour
and vice versa) and the areas of influence calculated for the server and neighbours. The intention is to
identify the neighbours that have the highest overlap with the server.
The typical overlap situation that must be identified is depicted in Figure 14.
Server Neighbour
Overlap Area
Figure 14: Overlap area between front to front neighbours
The worst overlapping case for normal cells will occur with the different neighbours that are
orientated face to face with the server. A certain number of neighbour cells will be identified in the
situation described above and will be considered in the determination of the down-tilt. Any reduction in
overlap with those neighbours will reduce as well the overlap with the remaining non-faced neighbours.
The procedure to screen these neighbours and consider/exclude a particular one from the down-tilt
calculation is governed by the following two rules:

• A neighbour seen from the server under an angle that is out of the server influence area will
be excluded from the down-tilt calculation (neighbour not qualified). This means that the
server will not be introducing interference to this particular neighbour.
• For all the neighbours: If the server is seen from a neighbour under an angle that is out of the
neighbour influence area, that neighbour will be excluded from the down-tilt calculation
(neighbour not qualified). This means that this particular neighbour will not be receiving
interference from the server under analysis.
Figure 15 shows the schema of server and neighbours cells, and the analysis required according to
the process described above.
x
Server out of Server out of
x
Neighbour area Neighbour area
x x
Neighbour out
of Server area
Neighbour out
of Server area
Neighbours Server
x
Figure 15: Neighbour exclusion procedure
Neighbours Excluded
The results of the application of this procedure in the example treated in the text are listed in
Figure 10. They show that in this practical case, 9 out of the 14 neighbours can be excluded from the
calculation process. With these rules, the measurement report analysis is only required in the remaining 5
qualified neighbours.
As mentioned in previous sections, it is necessary to identify the umbrella cells because the
characteristics of the overlap that they produce are different. These differences impact as well in the
procedure used to screen the neighbours. Figure 16 illustrates the overlap situation that appears when an
umbrella cell is involved.
In this case, the neighbours affected (interference) by the signal radiated by the umbrella cell are
not only the ones located front to front, but also the ones placed back to front. It is possible that the
interference effect caused by the umbrella is only noticed at the neighbours located back to front, so it is
necessary to consider these neighbours in the analysis. Considering the screening rules described above,
these particular neighbours are excluded, because they are not face to face, so a modification in the
exclusion procedure for the umbrella cells is required to include all meaningful neighbours.

Umbrella
Server
Neighbour
Overlap Area
Figure 16: Overlap area produced by umbrella cells over back to front neighbours
In order to cope with this particular situation, the screening procedure applied to cells identified as
“umbrella” will be more relaxed: Only the neighbours seen from the server under an angle that is out of the
server influence area will be excluded from the down-tilt calculation (neighbours not qualified). This means
that the server will be considered introducing interference to all the neighbours located inside its influence
area.
Figure 17 shows the schema with the screening process that applied for umbrella cells.
x x
Neighbour out
of Server area
Neighbour out
of Server area
Neighbours Umbrella Server

x
Figure 17: Neighbour exclusion procedure for umbrella cells
Neighbours Excluded

For the example presented in the table of Figure 10, in the case that the cell was identified as
“umbrella cell”, apart from the neighbours qualified in any case, the neighbours number 7, 8, 10, 12 and 14
would be also qualified and included in the calculation of the down-tilt.
TRAFFIC DISRUPTION CRITERION
The neighbours passing the geometric constraints (qualified ones) will be filtered again according
to this traffic criterion.
So far, all the qualified neighbours are considered in the same way, but not all of them have the
same importance to determine the down-tilt value. Moreover, there will be some neighbours that may be
discarded in the calculation due to its low importance. In order to exclude these irrelevant neighbours, it is
necessary to take into account the following two aspects:
• The neighbours that carry more traffic should have more weight in the down-tilt calculation
since more mobiles can potentially be affected by the interference introduced by the serving
cell (more traffic is disrupted).
• The neighbours that report the server under analysis more frequently should also influence
more in the down-tilt, because more mobiles are placed in the overlap area between both cells
(more percentage of traffic in the neighbour cell is disrupted).
The process to determine the neighbours that are irrelevant in the down-tilt calculation is based on
the analysis of the reports of the serving cell as neighbour of all the neighbours that passed the geometric
criterion.
The analysis of the server-neighbour and neighbour-server files will provide the information
described in Figure 18 that is necessary to determine the irrelevant neighbours.
MRs containing the MRs containing the cell most

Qualified Neighbour
server (17043) frequently reported
Neigh 2 (16921) 561 3412
Neigh 6 (16731) 301 8767
Neigh 9 (17241) 2887 3499
Neigh 11 (17251) 1089 2378
Neigh 13 (23251) 1880 2900
Figure 18: Presence of the server cell in the qualified neighbours
In order to determine influence of the neighbours, the importance of the server in the qualified
neighbour is analysed. An indicator is obtained for every neighbour with the ratio between the reports from
the server (MRs in the neighbour that include the server) and the reports of the cell most frequently
reported (cell most frequently reported in the MRs of the neighbour).
A neighbour passing the geometric criterion will be discarded at this point if this indicator
(presence of the server) is below a threshold that will be established as 0.1 (the server is reported at least
the 10% of the times that the most frequently reported cell appears in the MRs). So any neighbour that does
not satisfy this criterion will not be considered in the down-tilt calculation.
The table of Figure 19 lists these indicators for the example considered.

Qualified Neighbour Presence of the server Neighbour screening result

Neigh 2 (16921) 0.1644 (16%) Qualified
Neigh 6 (16731) 0.0343 (3%) Discarded
Neigh 9 (17241) 0.8251 (83%) Qualified
Neigh 11 (17251) 0.4579 (46%) Qualified
Neigh 13 (23251) 0.6483 (65%) Qualified
Figure 19: Traffic disruption criterion and screening process result
In the example above, one (16731) out of the five neighbours passing the geometric criterion is
discarded because it does not satisfy the traffic criterion. At the end of the screening process, there are four
qualified neighbours remaining that will be considered in the down-tilt calculation.
NEIGHBOUR C/I CALCULATION
Once that the neighbours that will be considered have been identified, the calculations described in
this section need to be done in parallel for everyone of the qualified neighbours.
In the rest of the document, the description concentrates on the down-tilt calculation process for
one of these Server-Neighbour paths. The same process will be carried out with as many paths as qualified
neighbours exist.
The geometry of the scenario addressed is displayed on Figure 20, where the main parameters to
describe it are the elevation and height of the server and neighbour antennae, the distance between them
and the down-tilt and radiation pattern of the server antenna.
Server
δ Neighbour N
HeightS
HeightN
ElevaS δ
ElevaN
Figure 20: Geometry of the Server-Neighbour path
BACKGROUND
The objective of all this analysis is to reduce the overlap between two cells in order to reduce the
interference that they are causing each other. The first step is to find an indicator to characterise the overlap
between two particular cells, in a way that improvements on the indicator represent reduction of
overlapping and vice versa.

The down-tilt will be determined by the required improvement in the overlap indicator and will be
achieved through the calculation of the additional attenuation to be applied to the path. This attenuation is
directly determined by the gain that the antenna of the serving cell provides in the path, so a modification
of the antenna gain is the last requirement. The required antenna gain provides the down-tilt value since
they are directly related through the antenna radiation pattern.
The indicator to characterise a particular server-neighbour path is the Carrier to Interference (C/I)
ratio, considering that C is the average level of the neighbour and I is the average level of the server, that
causes the interference in this case. The criterion to calculate the attenuation value (and hence the down-
tilt) will be to satisfy a minimum threshold of C/I ratio in the neighbour coverage area. With this rule, it
will be possible to control the radiation of the server cell that spreads along the coverage areas of the
neighbours.
In an approximate way, the above C/I ratio will vary along the Server-Neighbour path as depicted
in Figure 21, being maximum close to the location of the neighbour cell (but acting as server with a level of
C dBm), where C is maximum and I is minimum.
Neighbour Level (C)

Server Level (I)
Neighbour
Server
C/I Ratio
Site Neighbourhood
Figure 21: C/I ratio over the Server-Neighbour path
Whereas in a relaxed frequency reuse pattern, high overlap between server and neighbour
coverage areas would not cause any disturbance, for very tight reuse patterns such as 1x1 this is very
critical. With this 1x1 reuse pattern, all the cells share the same frequencies, so they interfere between
themselves, and the disturbance caused depends directly on the size of the overlapping area.
If the level of the interfering cell (I) is not under the desired cell level (C) by at least 9 dB
(protection between co-channel frequencies) the interference will cause quality degradation. Although, as
described in Figure 21, this C/I ratio decreases when approaching to the border of the cells, at least as a first
approach this margin should be satisfied in the area where most of the mobiles are located, in order to
minimise the interference in the system.
CALCULATION OF C/I AND REQUIRED ADDITIONAL PATH-LOSS
Nowadays, with frequency hopping widely deployed (1x1 becoming popular quickly), this
analysis is strongly recommended. For practical purposes, the criterion proposed is to guarantee an average
C/I ratio of at least 9 dB in the area where are located the 90% of mobiles that report the highest server
levels in the neighbour cell. Considering this, the average of the 90% of reports with highest values will be
used as the reference against the 9 dB threshold.
The use of an average C/I value of 9 dB will not ensure that all the reports (mobiles) always have
this difference between server and neighbour. Considering that this average is calculated with the reports

around the site location (the ones with best C/I), the percentage of reports that have a C/I better than 9 dB
depends on the shape of the C/I profile (i.e. on the deviation of the values around the average). Typically,
when working with average values, a safety margin over the threshold must be considered, depending on
the variability of the values in the distribution. This safety margin will be obtained from the analysis of the
C/I profile as a function of the percentage of reports used in the calculation.
The estimation of the current value of this C/I indicator is done through the analysis of the Server-
Neighbour files (obtained from CTP or a similar MR analysis program). The reports with 90% highest
values of the neighbour (when acting as server) will be considered and averaged to calculate a signal level
(C) that will represent the average level of the neighbour when being server in the area of the neighbour
where the 90% of the mobiles are located. From the same reports, the level of the server (acting now as
neighbour of the neighbour) is averaged in order to estimate a value (I) that represents the average level of
the interfering cell in the same area. The desired C/I value is available now as the ratio between these two
values. Figure 22 illustrates the idea.
Neighbour MR: Serving cell

level (LN) & Neighbouring
cell level (LS)
Server
Area used to estimate the C/I, Neighbour
where 90% of mobiles are located
Figure 22: Estimation of the current C/I ratio based on CTP analysis of MRs
The current C/I value is calculated according to the formula of Equation 5.
C  1 n  1 n 
= 10 Log  ∑ 10 ( LNi / 10 )  − 10 Log  ∑ 10 ( LSi / 10 ) 
I   n i =1   n i =1 
Where LNi and LSi are in dBm and n is the number of MRs considered in the calculation
Equation 5: Estimation of current C/I ratio
The most critical point in the previous calculation is to decide the number of MRs n to be
considered in the calculation of the C/I value. There are two opposite aspects to be considered:
• The number of MRs needs to be big enough to take reliable and meaningful values of C/I. For
that purpose, at least 90% of the reports need to be considered in the calculation of the
average C/I.
• The method used to determine the down-tilt will be based on the assumption that a certain C/I
value needs to be guaranteed at the location of the neighbour site. Because of this, it is
necessary to have a value of C/I that can be associated to the position where the neighbour is
located, and hence the values used to estimate it should correspond to mobiles located as close
to the site as possible. The bigger the number of reports used to calculate it, the less accurate
the assumption. It is proposed to take for this purpose the MRs that contain the highest 10%

of the values for the serving cell level (belonging to the neighbour cell in this analysis). This
value is a compromise to have meaningful data and not to make the surrounding area too big.
It is assumed that the highest levels reported correspond to mobiles located near the site.
As a summary of the two aspects, the proposal is:
• Calculate an average C/I value using the 90% of the MRs with highest reported levels from
the neighbour cell acting as a server. This value will be compared with the 9 dB threshold to
determine whether the down-tilt is necessary for this neighbour or not. The difference will be
an extra attenuation to be achieved by down-tilting the antenna.
• Determine the C/I profile for the server (neighbour)-neighbour (server) relationship, as a
function of the percentage of MRs used in the calculation. The variability of the profile will
be characterised by the difference in dB between the C/I calculated with the 10% of the
reports and the C/I calculated with the 90% of them. Using the same assumption as before,
this is an approach of the C/I as a function of the distance to the neighbour location. The
profile will be characterised by the difference in dB between the values calculated for the 10%
and 90% of the reports.
• The down-tilt of the antenna will be estimated to introduce an additional attenuation to the
interfering signal at the position of the neighbour cell.
The table of Figure 23 shows the results for the C/I ratio calculated with the 10% and 90% of the
reports, and the variability of the profile, measured as the difference of the previous two values of C/I, for
the example considered in the paper.
C/I (dB) C/I (dB) C/I (dB)

cell_id Qualify
Highest 90% Highest 10% Variation
Server 17043
Neigh 1 16792 NO 8.98 10.97 1.99
Neigh 2 16921 YES 4.96 4.92 -0.04
Neigh 3 17042 NO 7.68 8.08 0.4
Neigh 4 17052 NO 3.3 11.61 8.31
Neigh 5 17301 NO 3.37 17.18 13.81
Neigh 6 16731 NO 8.86 13.23 4.37
Neigh 7 17102 NO 8.21 6.97 -1.24
Neigh 8 17111 NO 8.12 9.22 1.1
Neigh 9 17241 YES 7.6 11.13 3.53
Neigh 10 17243 NO 3.95 3.53 -0.42
Neigh 11 17251 YES 5.2 8.62 3.42
Neigh 12 17253 NO 8.05 11.86 3.81
Neigh 13 23251 YES 1.26 1.23 -0.03
Neigh 14 17022 NO 6.61 8.11 1.5
Figure 23: 10% and 90% C/I ratios for the example
Figure 24 shows the C/I profiles calculated for the neighbour-server relationships corresponding to
the qualified neighbours. It can be seen that the profiles shape depend on the neighbour, showing constant
trend for some of them, and around 3 dB of variation for the other three neighbours. This difference must
be considered in the down-tilt calculation in order to get more accurate results.

C/I PROFILE (QUALIFIED NEIGHBOURS)
14
12
10
C/I Value in dB
8 03120_16921__03120_17043
03121_17241__03120_17043
03121_17251__03120_17043
6 03121_23251__03120_17043
0
%
0%
5%
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
70
75
80
85
90
95
10
% of MRs used in the calculation
Figure 24: C/I profiles for qualified neighbours as a function of the percentage of MRs
It is important to remark that there are two different types of qualified neighbours. A neighbour
may qualify because it is located face to face with the server (standard qualification) or because it is
orientated back to front and the server has been identified as an umbrella cell (umbrella qualification). The
way to calculate the additional attenuation will be different in both cases.
STANDARD QUALIFICATION
This additional attenuation will be the addition of two different amounts: The first contribution
will adjust the average value and the second one is an additional margin to consider the variation of the C/I
distribution and guarantee that most of the mobiles satisfy the minimum C/I value.
According to the method already described, the additional attenuation required is the difference
between the C/I threshold (9 dB) and the average C/I value calculated for this Server-Neighbour
relationship with the 90% of the reports, plus the term that accounts for the variation in the C/I profile. As
advanced in the previous sections, this extra attenuation needs to be obtained at the location of the
neighbour cell. The formula proposed to calculate the C/I penalty due to the profile variability is the one
presented in Equation 6.
( ( ) )* (( I ) (C −) ( I ) ) , ( C I )
 
( I ) )
C C
C
  = Min  9 − C 10% 90%
−C
 I  Penalty  I 90% 10% 90%
 I 90% 
Equation 6: Estimation of current C/I ratio

UMBRELLA QUALIFICATION
When a cell is identified as umbrella, some of the qualified neighbours may be orientated back to
front, and in this case, the extra attenuation required is calculated in a different way. In this case, only one
contribution is considered and it is the difference between the C/I threshold (9 dB) and the average C/I
value calculated for this Server-Neighbour relationship with the 90% of the reports.
The variation of the profile is not included in this case, because as the down-tilt is calculated with
the reference point in the neighbour location, all the mobiles perceive the required overlap reduction
irrespective of the position where they are. There is no need to include any margin to consider the
variability of the C/I.
Figure 25 lists, for the example, the improvement in C/I required for any Server-Neighbour pair in
order to ensure that the serving cell does not interfere to the neighbour considered even if co-channel
frequencies are used. In this case, all the neighbours are standard qualified since the server is not an
umbrella cell.
Path C/I Improvement (dB)

Neigh 2 (16921) - Server (17043) 4.01
Neigh 9 (17241) - Server (17043) 2.05
Neigh 11 (17251) - Server (17043) 6.30
Neigh 13 (23251) - Server (17043) 7.56
Figure 25: Improvement on C/I ratio required
DOWN-TILT CALCULATION
The calculations described in this section are done in parallel for everyone of the qualified
neighbours, and a different down-tilt value is obtained for every server-neighbour path. This section
describes the process to obtain the down-tilt from the additional attenuation calculated before.
As anticipated in the previous section, the value of C/I calculated with the 10% of the values will
be associated to the position where the neighbour cell is located, in order to make easier the geometrical
analysis of the problem and the calculation of the down-tilt.
Considering this, the 10% C/I needs to be improved in a margin equal to the additional attenuation
listed in the table of Figure 25, by reducing the level of the server cell (I) at the location of the neighbour in
the same amount.
This reduction in serving (interfering) level will be obtained by down-tilting the antennae in order
to reach the neighbour cell location under an angle that results in lower antenna gain. To summarise, the
improvement in C/I will be achieved by reducing the antenna gain affecting the Server-Neighbour path.
Figure 26 represents the schema of the vertical radiation pattern for a typical antenna, and some of
the parameters that will be considered in this analysis.
The considerations made for the analysis are listed below:
• The neighbour location is seen from the server antenna under an angle δ. See Equation 6.
• With the current down-tilt DTOLD, the ray that hits the neighbour location has attenuation
LANT OLD due to the antenna radiation pattern.

• The upper part of the main lobe will be considered in the attenuation calculations, in
order to keep the whole main lobe radiating to the useful coverage area.
Upper –3dB Ray
Vertical BW
φ
Maximum Gain Ray
φ = Vertical BW / 2
Lower –3dB Ray
Figure 26: Schema of the vertical radiation pattern for the antenna
The objective is to find out the upper ray (angle respect to the maximum gain) that suffers the
attenuation required to achieve the C/I ratio at the neighbour location, and based on this angle and the
geometry of the system depicted on Figure 27, determine the down-tilt.
Server
δ DTOLD
HeightS Neighbour N
HeightN
ElevaS δ
ElevaN
Distance
Figure 27: Geometry of the problem in the current situation (Old down-tilt)
 Height S + (Eleva S − Eleva N ) 

δ = tg −1  
 Dist 
Equation 7: Server antenna ! Neighbour location vision angle
The table of Figure 28 describes the steps required to calculate the new down-tilt value for the
antenna in the serving cell, according to the conditions of the neighbour considered.

Step Value
Calculate the server antenna – neighbour vision angle δ (Equation 6)
Determine the ray that reaches the neighbour (angle) δ - DTOLD
Determine attenuation associated to the previous ray LANT OLD (Figure 5)
Calculate the total attenuation required at the neighbour LANT TOTAL = LANT OLD +C/IImprovement
Determine the ray that reaches the neighbour with LANT TOTAL α (Figure 5)
Determine the down-tilt angle to apply to the antenna DTNEW = α+δ
Figure 28: Steps to calculate the new antenna down-tilt
The objective is that the ray that leaves the antenna from the upper part of the main lobe with
attenuation equal to the required, hits the ground at the position of the neighbour cell (geometric analysis).
Following with the example described in the document, the results obtained applying this process
for the qualified neighbours are presented next (Figure 29).
Current Ray
Path LANT OLD LANT TOTAL DTNEW
(δ -DTOLD)
Neigh 2 (16921) - Server (17043) -2.85º 1.00 dB 5.01 dB 7.65º
Figure 29: Down-tilt calculation for the example
A down-tilt requirement is obtained for any Server-Neighbour path, and a unique value will be
decided for the antenna considering the different weight that the different neighbours have in the down-tilt
decision.
WEIGHTED DOWN-TILT DECISION
Taking all the individual down-tilt values obtained from the separate analysis of the server-
neighbour paths, the last step of the process is the calculation of a unique value that will be the down-tilt
applied to the antenna in the server cell.
As described in previous sections, not all the qualified neighbours have the same importance to
determine the down-tilt value. Every one of them has a certain weight in the decision that is determined by
the following two aspects:
• The neighbours that carry more traffic have more weight in the decision since more mobiles
can potentially be affected by the interference introduced by the serving cell.
• The neighbours that report the server under analysis more frequently should also influence
more in the decision, because more mobiles are placed in the overlap area between both cells.
The analysis of the reports of the serving cell as neighbour of all the qualified neighbours that are
considered in the down-tilt calculation (server-neighbour and neighbour-server files) provides the
information described in Figure 30. The calculations done with that data will define the weight of every
neighbour in the final down-tilt value.

MRs containing the MRs containing the cell most

Qualified Neighbour
server (17043) frequently reported
Neigh 2 (16921) 561 3412
Neigh 9 (17241) 2887 3499
Neigh 11 (17251) 1089 2378
Neigh 13 (23251) 1880 2900
Figure 30: Presence of the server cell in the qualified neighbours
In order to determine the different neighbour weights, the two aspects mentioned above are
considered. The absolute number of reports (provided that the collection time is the same for all of them)
will be an indicator of the amount of traffic carried by the neighbour. The most important one will be the
one with higher number of MRs.
An indicator (Importance of the neighbour) to consider both things is calculated as the ratio
between the reports containing the server and the reports of the cell most frequently reported in the most
important qualified neighbour (3499 in the example).
Considering that indicator, a weight is determined for each neighbour as the importance value
normalised to 1 (the addition of all the weights of all the qualified neighbours equals to 1)
The table of Figure 31 lists the importance indicators and weights for the example considered.
Qualified Neighbour Importance of the neighbour Weight

Neigh 2 (16921) 0.1603 0.0874
Neigh 9 (17241) 0.8251 0.4499
Neigh 11 (17251) 0.3112 0.1697
Neigh 13 (23251) 0.5373 0.2930
Figure 31: Importance and weight of qualified neighbours
The final unique down-tilt value is the addition of different contributions each one provided by
one of the qualified neighbours, and whose value depends on both, the weight and the separate down-tilt
value obtained for the neighbour. The table of Figure 32 contains the contributions of every neighbour and
the final value obtained for the down-tilt on the cell under analysis.
Qualified Neighbour Separate Down-tilt Weight Down-tilt Contribution

Neigh 2 (16921) 7.65º 0.0874 0.6689º
Neigh 9 (17241) 6.10º 0.4499 2.7444º
Neigh 11 (17251) 9.59º 0.1697 1.6279º
Neigh 13 (23251) 10.10º 0.2930 2.9590º
FINAL DOWNTILT VALUE 8.0002º
Figure 32: Calculation of the final down-tilt value
According to the previous result, the value recommended by the method in the example is 8º of
down-tilt for the antennae in the serving cell.

VALIDATION PROCESS
DOWN-TILT CALCULATION TESTS

The validation process has been done applying all the procedures described in previous sections to
field data collected from live systems on different networks. The data selected for this purpose correspond
to two different networks:
• Brno system (Czech Republic): This network has been selected as the first reference
considering the high amount of reports available and the acceptable level of coverage
optimisation already applied to the system. Should the results show high correlation with the
current down-tilt values, would prove the right performance of the method. In addition to that,
a down-tilt proposal was already done with a different (non-automatic) method, and agreed
with the operator as coherent. This proposal is used as well to test the accuracy of the method
described
• Ankara system (Turkey): This network is an example of a bigger system and in earlier
optimisation stages, that requires a lot of cell coverage optimisation work. It is a very valid
scenario to assess the method.
BRNO SYSTEM VALIDATION TEST
This section presents the results given by the algorithm. The proposal generated by the algorithm
for Brno system is compared with both the current state and the previous proposal. Only part of the system
(about 50 cells) has been analysed but the area involved is big enough to consider the results as
representative.
The table of Figure 33 presents a group of cells with comparative results of the current state,
previous proposal and the values provided by this algorithm.
Cell Current Previous New Method

Identity Downtilt Proposal Proposal
3014 5 7 5 (=)
3031 3 5 3 (=)
3032 5 7 5 (=)
3062 7 8 8 (+1)
3065 3 5 4 (+1)
3098 4 6 4 (=)
3104 3 5 4 (+1)
3127 0 2 3 (+3)
3152 7 8 Umbrella: 7 (=)
3165 7 8 7 (=)
3187 3 5 5 (+2)
25447 0 2 0 (=)
25887 2 4 Umbrella: 5 (+3)
25888 0 3 Umbrella: 3 (+3)
Figure 33: Comparison of the algorithm results with the previous proposal for Brno system
The revision of the previous table shows high correlation between both proposals, and coherent
results for the down-tilt values suggested.

The umbrella detection and correction process has been also tested in this case, giving valid
results. It is important to note that the cells 25887 and 25888 do not have any standard qualified
neighbours, so if the umbrella qualification was not used, no down-tilt recommendation would have been
given for these cells when it has been proven to be necessary.
Related with the umbrella cell cases, there is an important test to do, and it is to analyse the
distribution of timing advance in these cells. Figure 34 contains the timing advance distributions for the
cells identified as umbrella cells.
BRNO Timing Advance Distribution
60.00
50.00
40.00
25888
% MRs
30.00 25887
3152
20.00
10.00
0.00
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32
Timing Advance
Figure 34: Timing advance distribution of umbrella cells
It must be noticed that looking at the previous graphic, cells 25887 and 25888 show residual tails
in the distribution that prove that they have overshooting, so a down-tilt should be done. On the contrary,
the distribution shown for cell 3152 does not have this problem because the cell already has a down-tilt, so
even being an umbrella cell, it is not causing neither overshooting nor excessive overlap (no down-tilt is
required). This is to demonstrate that timing advance distribution depends on both things, being an
umbrella or not and the down-tilt already applied, so the decision to determine that a particular cell is an
umbrella may not be taken only by looking at the timing advance.
Following, in Figure 35 are listed all the down-tilt modifications suggested by the method for the
cells of the area considered (contiguous area that includes the cells listed in Figure 33).
Cell Current New Method Comments

Identity Downtilt Proposal
3001 0 0 NO Downtilt Required
3007 7 8* UMBRELLA CELL!! (1º INCREASE)

3009 8 8* UMBRELLA CELL!! (NO Downtilt Required)
3018 7 11 4º INCREASE
Figure 35: Down-tilt proposal for the Brno area under analysis

It is shown again the reasonable values proposed by the method. The high degree of optimisation
in the system is reflected in the results, with only 17 out of 52 modifications recommended. It is important
to notice that three cells result in high down-tilt values as a result of having poor C/I ratios while having
already important down-tilt values applied. These cases should be looked at by an RF engineer with
knowledge of the area, to verify the results shown in the C/I matrix.
ANKARA SYSTEM VALIDATION TEST
This section presents the results given by the algorithm. The proposal generated by the algorithm
for Ankara system is compared with the current state of the network. Only a representative part of the
system (about 80 cells) has been analysed.
Figure 36 contains the table with all the down-tilt modifications suggested by the method for the
cells in the area considered.
Cell Current New Method Comments

Identity Downtilt Proposal
16831 0 Change Antenna Change Antenna
16941 0 10 10º INCREASE
16942 0 11 11º INCREASE
23171 0 11 11º INCREASE

17293 0 11 11º INCREASE

17432 0 10 10º INCREASE
Figure 36: Down-tilt proposal for the Ankara area under analysis
In this case, the proposal includes modifications for 52 out of the 84 cells analysed (9
recommendations to change the antenna), backing up the hypothesis of lack of optimisation in the area. The
results are quite coherent as well, and there is a particularity in the area under analysis, that contains a lot of
cells with antennae with wide vertical beam-width (K730360 - 27 degrees) that result in very high down-tilt
values in the analysis.
It has been set a limit of 12 degrees for the maximum down-tilt to be applicable, and the change of
the antenna model (replace by a narrower beam one) is suggested as the first step to improve the C/I ratio.
This limit depends on the antenna model, so some of the recommendations with high down-tilt values could
be also addressed through antennae changes.
DOWN-TILT IMPLEMENTATION TESTS
The validation work described before was done in order to verify that the recommendations result
in coherent values, but these recommendations were at no time implemented to analyse the result.
This further step in the process was done to create a list of down-tilt modifications with the
intention of implementing them and evaluate afterwards the real effect compared with the foreseen one.
The system in Prague (Czech Republic) was selected, and the algorithm described was used to
calculate the down-tilt changes. A large area was analysed (about 300 cells) and as a first step, six cells
were selected to implement the changes and after field data collection, evaluate the results.
Figure 37 contains the table with the list of cells and their down-tilt modifications suggested by
the method, compared with the changes done by the operator in the system.
Cell Current New Method Down-Tilt Implementation

Identity Downtilt Proposal (Operator Decision)
00072 3 5 5º (Same as proposed)
00277 5 9 7º (2º less than proposed)
Figure 37: Down-tilt changes in selected cells of Prague area
Because of data availability (before and after the down-tilt changes) only five of the cells have
been analysed after the implementation of the changes (cell 00072 is not considered).
The fist step has been to re-calculate the C/I value (as described in previous sections) for the
Server-Neighbour path that determined the down-tilt adjustment in order to evaluate the improvement
obtained with the down-tilt done.
The algorithm suggests the down-tilt changes with the objective of ensuring a 9 dB of protection
for the 90% of the mobiles. The second step is to evaluate if this condition has been satisfied with the

change, in order to test the accuracy of the recommendation. The table of Figure 38 lists the five cells
considered, with the main neighbours affected and the C/I values measured both before and after the down-
tilt changes.
Cell Interfered (C/I)90% (C/I)90% (C/I)90%

Identity Neighbour Before (dB) After (dB) Improvement (dB)
00277 00445 7.47 9.41 1.94
00502 00059 7.25 10.59 3.34
00547 00005 6.00 7.44 1.44
00549 00501 6.92 12.77 5.85
00691 00003 6.36 7.97 1.61
Figure 38: C/I modifications in selected cells of Prague area
At first glance, the results show significant improvements in the calculated C/I, in most of the
cases over the target 9 dB threshold. The revision of the individual results must be done simultaneously
looking at the differences between the proposed and implemented down-tilts.
Only cells 547 and 691 do not satisfy the 9 dB criterion after the down-tilt performed, requiring
additional down-tilt increase, specially cell 547. The rest of them accomplish the target threshold, even
when less down-tilt than suggested has been implemented. The explanation to this is due to the geometric
calculation of the down-tilt that for close neighbours (typically below 250 meters of distance) results in
high vision angles, leading to high down-tilt values. This effect may be seen as a more effective
interference reduction, for the same down-tilt value, as the distance increases.
High values of down-tilt proposed for cells 277 and 547 are the consequences of the involved
neighbours being located as close as 137 and 186 meters of distance. The main conclusion of this is that the
recommendations obtained from the method for close neighbours (250 meters may be considered the
border) are a certain degree pessimistic meaning that the value obtained is higher than the necessary in
practice.
In order to see the modification of the C/I profile for the Server-Neighbour paths, Figures 39, 40,
41, 42 and 43 represent the comparison between the profiles before and after the changes.
The most common profile change is just a translation with an offset to better C/I values, proving
that the down-tilt is efficient reducing the interference caused by the cells whose antennae have been down-
tilted. It is important to notice that, as expected, the improvement in C/I is higher for the mobiles located
close to the neighbour antenna.
A slightly different behaviour is obtained for cell 549 (see Figure 42), where the profile becomes
almost constant to a high C/I value.

C/I PROFILE FOR 21770_00445 (C) AND 21770_00277 (I)
13
12
11
10
9
C/I (dB)
BEFORE
AFTER
8
% % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % 0%
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 10
% Mobiles
Figure 39: Modification of C/I profile after down-tilt for cell 00277
18
16
14
12
C/I (dB)
BEFORE
AFTER
10
% % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % 0%
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 10
% Mobiles

10
8
C/I (dB)
BEFORE
7
AFTER
% % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % 0%
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 10
% Mobiles
16
14
12
C/I (dB)
BEFORE
10
AFTER
% % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % 0%
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 10
% Mobiles

10
8
C/I (dB)
BEFORE
7
AFTER
% % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % 0%
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 10
% Mobiles
The formula used to calculate the penalty of C/I due to the profile variability to be included in the
target additional attenuation has been reviewed after the analysis of the previous results in order to better
address the cases of C/I close to the 9 dB threshold. This new formula does not drastically distinguish
between cases immediately below and over that threshold.
Once that the predictions in terms of C/I corrections follow the same trend as the real system, the
last step is to evaluate the performance of the network after the changes, in terms of quality and service
offered to the subscriber, compared to the previous one.
The system before the down-tilt implementation was benchmarked in terms of statistics and the
comparison with the new performance is done in the following paragraphs.
The performance comparison has been focussed on the set of cells where the down-tilt was
modified (i.e. 277, 502, 547, 549 and 691). The performance of the global set of cells is described in
Figures 44, 45, 46 and 47 showing global improvements.
Figure 45 shows important reduction in the percentage of dropped calls in these cells (20%), as a
consequence of both, improvements in the RF conditions (reduction of RF Losses in 12%) and
improvements in the handover execution (reduction of fails on handovers in 19%). This better
performance is the direct consequence of the reduction on interference, represented in the C/I improvement,
considering that in the 1x1 SFH system the reduction of interference is significant even for small
modifications of the down-tilt angles (for 1x1 SFH all the cells share the frequencies and the number of
interfering cells is high). The results of Figure 44 show better call performance as a consequence of the
previously described improvement effects.
Particularly interesting are the results shown on Figures 46 and 47 where the distributions of the
handover causes before and after the changes are depicted. The most relevant difference is the reduction of
Uplink Quality causes in a 17%, representing the important reduction of interference in the uplink path.
This is the expected result since the down-tilted antennae receive less interference. Under the new situation,
the downlink quality triggering occurs before the uplink one for more cases, explaining the transfer of part

of uplink quality percentage to downlink quality handovers (increase in about 10%). This result is also
expected since the downlink interference has not changed because the cells causing interference in the
downlink have not changed their antennae down-tilts. The marginal increase in level handover may be
explained as the tailoring in the coverage area of these cells that will reduce the level in the borders. This
marginal reduction indicates no mayor impact on coverage caused by the down-tilt increase.
CALL PERFORMANCE (I)
95.77 BEFORE AFTER
96
95.36
95.25
95.5
95 94.52
Percentage (%)
94.5
94
93.5
93
CALL_SETUP_SUCCESS CALL_SUCCESS
Figure 44: Call performance comparison in the set of cells with down-tilt changes
CALL PERFORMANCE (II)
0.87
BEFORE AFTER
0.9
0.77
0.8
0.69
0.7 0.62 0.61
Percentage (%)
0.6 0.54
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
DROP_CALL HANDOVER_FAILURE RF_LOSS
Figure 45: Dropped calls performance comparison in the set of cells with down-tilt changes

HANDOVER DISTRIBUTION BEFORE DOWNTILTS
0.17%
10.05%
DOWNLINK_LEVEL
DOWNLINK_QUALITY
POWER_BUDGET
49.84%
UPLINK_LEVEL
UPLINK_QUALITY
35.49%
4.44%
Figure 46: Handover distribution before the down-tilt changes
HANDOVER DISTRIBUTION AFTER DOWNTILTS
0.25%
32.67% 19.93% DOWNLINK_LEVEL

DOWNLINK_QUALITY
POWER_BUDGET
UPLINK_LEVEL
UPLINK_QUALITY
6.24%
40.90%
Figure 47: Handover distribution after the down-tilt changes
Following with the results of Figures 46 and 47, the increase of the percentage of Power Budget
handovers (about 5%) shows the right performance of the cells after the modifications.

CONCLUSIONS
This sections tries to summarise the main results obtained from this validation test. First of all, it is
important to say that the small size of the area selected to test the down-tilt methodology has to be kept in
mind at the time of reviewing the conclusions obtained. These conclusions are strictly what it has been
observed in the data collected from the cells analysed, where the changes were performed.
In terms of performance, the statistics for the cells affected by the down-tilts have been compared
before and after the modifications. Lack of data for the surrounding neighbours has not permitted the
comparison of the statistics for those cells.
The main conclusions may be summarised as follows:
• There is an improvement in the C/I indicator for the mainly affected neighbours.
• The C/I results are quite similar in practice to the ones estimated with the algorithm.
• The old formula to estimate the required reduction of interference was too pessimistic for
cells whose C/I indicator was close to the limit of 9 dB. That formula has been modified to
better fit the calculations to the practice.
• The down-tilt results are a little bit pessimistic for the cells whose dominant neighbour is
closer to 250 meters. In these cases, the down-tilts suggested are too high.
• The statistical results show better performance for the cells, showing the interference
reduction. Important results have been noticed in terms of dropped calls and reduction in the
number of quality handovers.
The final remark, provided the positive results obtained in this small test, is again the necessity of
a further step of testing, within a bigger area and if possible for different environments.

Cell Coverage Optimisation: Down-tilt Plan Calculation Algorithm

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Cell Coverage Optimisation: Down-tilt Plan Calculation Algorithm

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Advanced Network Development Centre

MOTOROLA CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY

TABLE OF CONTENTS ..............................................................................................................................I

LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................................... II

SIGN-OFF FORM ......................................................................................................................................IV

SUMMARY OF THE PROCESS................................................................................................................ 3

INPUT DATA REQUIRED ......................................................................................................................... 4

Revision 1.0 MOTOROLA CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY Page i

Revision 1.0 MOTOROLA CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY Page ii

Revision 1.0 MOTOROLA CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY Page iii

Author: Fernando Sancho Signature: Date: 16th Feb. 2000

Revision Date Author Revised by Changes Description

Roberto García Inclusion of results from the

Modifications to the algorithm, and

Addition of an improvement in the

Inclusion of validation results after

Revision 1.0 MOTOROLA CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY Page iv

Figure 1: Coverage problems affecting network quality

Revision 1.0 MOTOROLA CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY Page 1

Revision 1.0 MOTOROLA CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY Page 2

SUMMARY OF THE PROCESS

GEOMETRIC NEIGHBOUR N th DOWNTILT WEIGHTED

Figure 2: Block diagram of the down-tilt methodology

" Input Data

Revision 1.0 MOTOROLA CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY Page 3

INPUT DATA REQUIRED

Figure 3: Geographical information required in the analysis

SERVER-NEIGHBOUR ANALYSIS DATA

Revision 1.0 MOTOROLA CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY Page 4

Cell Identifier: LAC - 2161 CI - 10062

X Parameter: RXLEV (NON PC) DOWNLINK

Figure 4: Server-Neighbour analysis data obtained from CTP

• Server: Server S Neighbour: Neighbour N1

• Server: Neighbour N1 Neighbour: Server S

Revision 1.0 MOTOROLA CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY Page 5

Figure 5: Vertical antenna pattern (Tabular digital format)

Revision 1.0 MOTOROLA CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY Page 6

DESCRIPTION OF THE PROCESS

GEOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM

DISTANCE TO THE NEIGHBOURS

Figure 6: Calculation of distance between sites

ψ = Cos −1 [SinL S ⋅ SinL N + CosL S ⋅ CosL N ⋅ Cos (WS − W N )]

d =ψ ⋅ R Where ψ is in radians and R = 6370 Km

Equation 1: Formulas to calculate the distance between sites

Revision 1.0 MOTOROLA CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY Page 7

Figure 7: Relative orientation of the sites

Those angles are calculated with the formulas listed in Equation 2:

 SinL N − SinLS ⋅ Cosψ   SinLS − SinL N ⋅ Cosψ 

WN > WS and LN > LS: θ SN = θSN

Revision 1.0 MOTOROLA CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY Page 8

Figure 8: Distance and orientation angles for the practical case

The influence of a particular neighbour in the determination of the down-tilt required in a

Figure 9: Definition of areas of influence

Revision 1.0 MOTOROLA CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY Page 9

Area _ Cell _ 1 = [θ 31 , θ 12 ] Area _ Cell _ 2 = [θ 12 , θ 23 ] Area _ Cell _ 3 = [θ 23 , θ 31 ]

Equation 3: Calculation of the areas of influence for a 3-cell site

Antenna Angle Angle Area of

Revision 1.0 MOTOROLA CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY Page 10

Figure 11: Definition of the cell neighbourhood

Revision 1.0 MOTOROLA CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY Page 11

Average + Standard Average

Server Neigh. 1&2 Neigh. 3 Neigh. 4&5 Neigh. 6