Planning base station location for the UMTS network

The planning of the second generation mobile network can be carried out in two distinct stages. The first stage sets out to determine the position of the base stations so as to ensure a total coverage. The second step aims to attribute frequency bands to the base stations in a view to responding to a given traffic requirement. Such a method is no longer adequate for the planning of the base stations location in UMTS as it is based only on the signal prediction and does not take into account the traffic distribution, the signal quality and the power control mechanism. In this paper we present different discrete optimization models and algorithms aimed at supporting the decisions in the process of planning where to locate new base stations for the UMTS networks.