WCDMA handover parameters optimization

WCDMA soft handover is assisted by mobile station´s measurements of the monitored and active set cells´ quality. The rules for measurement reporting are based on thresholds whose computation depends on many parameters. The setting of parameters greatly affects handover, performance and downlink capacity consumption. In this paper, handover parameters are optimized using field measurements. Field measurements are fed into a S/W emulator mimicking mobile and base station operation under different settings of handover parameters. Parameters are optimized in terms of their effect on mean active set size, captured power, and rate of occurrence of handover events.