Individually targeted radio network optimization

Sporadic network quality problems in a cellular network become prevalent after the initial rollout phase. Such problems occur in limited area of the service coverage and they are often revealed only by on-site measurement or customer feedback. Therefore, their quantitative analysis is difficult. They must therefore be solved individually under time and cost restrictions. We propose a simulation-based framework for solving these problems efficiently. A prototype system based on this framework was developed that supports fast simulation and three-dimensional visualization of radio quality and coordinated analysis of radio quality data and operational statistics. Using our system, we devised and implemented countermeasures (neighbor cell list optimization and antenna tilt tuning) for sporadic network quality problems in part of a commercial 3G cellular network in Hong Kong. The countermeasures mitigated these problems and improved the related key network indicators by as much as 60%.