International Journal of Engineering, Applied and Management Sciences Paradigms, Vol.

24, Issue 01
Publishing Month: May 2015
An Indexed and Referred Journal
ISSN (Online): 2320-6608
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UMTS Vs LTE Planning by using ATOLL Simulation

Tool Case Study: Alazhary City Khartoum State Sudan

Mohammed Suliman Abd Alrazig Yousif 1 and Dr. Amin Babiker A/Nabi Mustaf2
Department of Communications, Faculty of Engineering, Al-Neelain University Khartoum, Sudan

Abstract innovative solutions in order to analyze and improve

Mobile broadband is reality today and is growing fast, as a their performance.
member of the internet generation grow accustomed to
having broadband access where they go, and not just at Wireless mobile operators are on tough competition
home or in the office, by 2016 there are expected to be with each other to provide the best they can offer to
close to 5 billion mobile broadband subscription
worldwide. The majority of these will be served by UMTS
their subscribers. Here in this paper we will be
and LTE networks. UMTS AND LTE NETWORKS is talking about 3g that consists of UMTS and 4g which
continuously being developed to make sure that future is LTE. Network planning is one very fundamental
requirements and scenarios are being met and prepared in task so that the coverage and capacity can be
the best way .This paper provides an in-depth view on maintained. This is not just to be done for the
planning UMTS and LTE networks which its the most costumers present but also for the customers which
important problem that haunts the service providers in are yet to be added to the network [1]. And here are
mobile communications world also the service providers some comparisons between UMTS and LTE
must achieve the customer needs by developing expanding specifications shown in table [1].
and upgrade there networks because the feature customers
need more bandwidth more mobility and fast data
transferring thats miens more data rate and from operators
perspective the need to be sure the customers are satisfied
with high quality of service and low costs this goal well
done by good planning . So in this paper we highlights in
how to plan a UMTS network in an area and then to apply
LTE network in the same area by using atoll simulation
tool.
Keywords: UMTS, LTE, ATOLL Simulation Tool.

1. Introduction
The growing demand for network services, such as
VoIP, web browsing, video telephony, and video
streaming, with constraints on delays and bandwidth
requirements, poses new challenges in the design of
the future generation cellular networks. 3GPP 1
introduced the Long Term Evolution (LTE)
specifications [1] as an answer to this need, aiming at
ambitious performance goals and defining new
packet-optimized and all-IP architectures for the Table [1] Comparison between LTE and UMTS /
radio access and the core networks. According to [2], 3GPP 3G Specifications [6]
there are already more than 20 LTE cellular operators
worldwide and more than 50 million LTE subscribers 2. Problem Definition
are foreseen by 2016. For this reason, both research
and industrial communities are making a The reasons of this paper is to plan a LTE network in
considerable effort on the study of upgrading UMTS an area in SUDAN called ALAZHARY city thats
systems to LTE systems, proposing new and already covered by UMTS network , in other words
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 International Journal of Engineering, Applied and Management Sciences Paradigms, Vol. 24, Issue 01
Publishing Month: May 2015
An Indexed and Referred Journal
ISSN (Online): 2320-6608
www.ijeam.com
is to upgrade the UMTS network to LTE network in
the same area .
3. Objectives
3.1 Study UMTS and LTE planning techniques.
3.2 Simulate UMTS network on ALAZHARY city
and calculate the number of the enodebs thats
need to cover all the area.
3.3 Simulate LTE network on the same area
calculate the number of eNodeBs thats need to
cover all the area.
3.4 Compare the results of the calculations.
4. Radio Networks Planning Steps
Radio network planning is described by the flow
chart as shown in the figure 1 can be summarized
into three main steps [2]:-
4.1 Network dimensioning
4.2 Capacity and Coverage Planning
4.3 Network optimization
4.1 Network Dimensioning
Network dimensioning is the very task to start the
network planning of a given cellular network [3]. The
main outcome of this step are firstly the generation of
power budget, coverage analysis and capacity
estimation and secondly estimation of the number of
sites required.
5
With the network planning overall picture of the
network is visible and this can be taken as the base
for all further planning activities. Network
Dimensioning determines the area which is supposed
to be work out with the computation of number of
sites required to provide cover the target areas while
satisfying the coverage and capacity requirements
[4].
4.2 Coverage and Capacity Planning
The capacity of any given network can be measured
in terms of the traffic load of the subscribers it can
handle. Following are the steps to calculate network
capacity [4]:
which can reach different region according to the
frequency reuse scheme and available spectrum.
number of carriers and the blocking probability.
now the sum of all the individual cell capacities
gives the network capacity.
The propagation curve formulas determines the
possibilities for rough coverage calculations but these
average values are not sufficient enough for making
the detailed network plan hence many computer-
aided tools which are based on digital maps have
been developed to improve the prediction quality.
4.3 Network Optimization
Network optimization is step in which the efficiency
of the network is increased. The output of the
planned network is optimized for better results. It is
the continuous process that keeps on improving the
overall network quality. Network quality can be seen
two different perspectives, one is the subscriber point
of view and other is the operator point of view.
Subscriber can never be interested in site leasing or
any maintenance issues [5]. As long as he is getting
proper services and his service is not affected issues
like spectrum efficiency, network traffic etc are of no
interest to him but from the operators point of view,
these things are of great importance.
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 International Journal of Engineering, Applied and Management Sciences Paradigms, Vol. 24, Issue 01
Publishing Month: May 2015
An Indexed and Referred Journal
ISSN (Online): 2320-6608
www.ijeam.com

5. UMTS Planning TABLE 2 at Receiving End

The process of UMTS radio planning can be summed

into the following steps as shown in the figure 2

TABLE 3 at Transmitting End

Figure2 In UMTS networks, there is slightly more complexity

6. Link Budget
After the output of dimensioning process, next step is
the link budget planning that ensures the coverage
and the capacity for a particular area. The link budget
for the receiving and the transmitting ends can be
seen in the table [2] and table [3] respectively [4].
than in GSM. Here every user is generating
interference for the other user because all of those
users are sharing a common frequency band hence
cell radius depends on the traffic load at any given
time and it should be estimated in an iterative way in
both Uplink and Downlink, analyzing each one
separately. The uplink and downlink both will output
a cell range value but the smaller one in the two
should be taken [4].
7. Cell Range

Cell range can be calculated by defining

the sensitivity for the receiver for a reference user I
of each service k:
Required Level [dBm] = NF + 10 Log (No) + 10 Log
(ioi) + 10 Log [ Eb/No k] + 10 Log Rk
Where:
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 International Journal of Engineering, Applied and Management Sciences Paradigms, Vol. 24, Issue 01
Publishing Month: May 2015
An Indexed and Referred Journal
ISSN (Online): 2320-6608
www.ijeam.com

After applying the workflow and import the map

rmal noise density, normally assumed to carefully we found the result shown in figure number
be -174 dBm/Hz [4]:

To calculate the Maximum path loss, the following

equation is used
Lmax, i = PULk Required_Level losses
margins + gains
Where PULk is the mobile power valid for service k
[dBm].

In the above equation all the Losses, margins and

gains are given in dBs. Once this is determined, the
smallest Lmax is chosen as the limiting maximum
path loss. This when applied to propagation model, it
will give the cell range.

8. UMTS planning workflow by using atoll

simulation tool [5]:

When we need to plan UMTS network by using atoll

the steps which is shown in figure number [3]

Figure number [4] network planning result to an

urban area in SUDAN covered by signal level and
transmitters

* The area is about 50km2

* Number of transceivers that needs to cover

all over the area is 31 site

9. LTE Planning
The most important LTE radio interface
parameters are summarized in Table [4] for the
Figure Number [3] UMTS Planning Workflow by
convenience of the reader. Our focus is on the FDD
using ATOLL Simulation Tool

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 International Journal of Engineering, Applied and Management Sciences Paradigms, Vol. 24, Issue 01
Publishing Month: May 2015
An Indexed and Referred Journal
ISSN (Online): 2320-6608
www.ijeam.com

variant of LTE, although most of the discussion is

also applicable to TDD.

Table Number[4] LTE Radio Interface

Parameters

Figure Number [5] LTE Network

Planning Workflow [5]

10. LTE Network Planning Workflow by 11. Applying ATOLL Simulation

using ATOLL Simulation Tool
Digital map of ALAZHARY (shown in Fig.5) has
* After the study of radio interface parameters been used for radio planning in this stage. These
carefully we flow the LTE network planning maps consisted of ALAZHARY city, main road,
workflow shown in figure number [5]. secondary road, streets and buildings. At first to
cover the whole ALAZHARY city eNodeBs were
placed (shown in figure number 6) where the no
eNodebs. Comes from the coverage and capacity
analysis. After placing the eNodeBs coverage
prediction was done that helped to justify the
placement of the eNodeBs. Traffic maps were created
for each of the ALAZHARY map subsections.
Automatic frequency planning and automatic cell
planning were performed before running each of
these simulations.

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 International Journal of Engineering, Applied and Management Sciences Paradigms, Vol. 24, Issue 01
Publishing Month: May 2015
An Indexed and Referred Journal
ISSN (Online): 2320-6608
www.ijeam.com

Figure Number [5] Alazhary Digital Map

12. Coverage Prediction

Coverage predictions have been performed by:
transmitter, signal level.

13. LTE Network Deployment

After deploying ALAZHARY map to the simulator
and select the coverage by transmitter and by the
signal level and adjust the locations of the eNodebs
we found the results shown in figure number [6]. Figure Number [6] ALAZHARY LTE Coverage

For 50km2 we can cover the area by only 21 sites. References

14. Conclusion
In detail Atoll simulations have been run
on ALAZHARY digital map containing both
coverage predictions and traffic simulations by
applying UMTS network and then LTE network And
we found that its very important to the operators to
upgrade their UMTS network to LTE network to
achieve the target of increasing the quality of service
and reduce the number of the eNodebs and this will
results reducing the costs.
[1] 3GPP, Tech. Specif. Group Radio Access
Network - Requirements for Evolved UTRA (E-
UTRA) and Evolved UTRAN (E-UTRAN),
3GPP TS 25.913.
[2] D. McQueen, The momentum behind LTE
adoption, IEEE Commun. Mag., vol. 47, no. 2,
pp. 4445, Feb. 2009.47
[3] T. Norman, The Road to LTE for GSM and
UMTS Operators, Analysis Mason Ltd. White
Paper, Jan. 2009
[4] Review on 2G, 3G and 4G Radio Network
Planning *Tushar Saxena, **J.S. Jadon
*Student, M.Tech., ** Associate Professor
Amity University, Noida, India International
Journal of Engineering, Business and Enterprise
Applications (IJEBEA).
[5] www.forsk.com.
[6] Network Capacity, Coverage Estimation and
Frequency Planning of 3GPP Long Term
Evolution Author Liang Zhang.

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