Performance Evaluation of Automatic Frequency Planning Using Automatic Frequency Optimization System Tool

Frequency planning in cellular networks is an extremely onerous task. Manual allocation of frequencies for different cells in a cellular network is even more difficult due to overshooting cells in the network and limiting number of frequencies available in the spectrum, thus, leading to inefficiency in cellular radio systems. The substantial deployment and high growth of cellular networks give rise to the requirement of automatic frequency planning (AFP) tools. Such tools ensure optimum performance and coverage of wireless networks. These tools are based on different evolutionary algorithms which play a key role in the optimization of cellular networks and are frequently used by different cellular service providers for better network frequency planning. In this paper, AFP is implemented in real cellular network of different major cities of Pakistan using Automatic Frequency Optimization System (AFOS) tool. An instant decrease in call drop rate was observed ranging from 14% to 35% after the implementation of frequency plan from AFOS tool using baseband frequency hopping technique.