User guided energy and capacity optimization in UMTS mobile networks

The power levels of cellular network User Equipment (UE) may vary considerably in both the receiver and the transmitter side, especially in indoor locations. With an indirect guidance method, the users are self-optimizing their UE to a better location with the help of an application. Thus, the user distribution is weighted more on high quality connection areas, which results in saving the UE batteries and reducing the overall radiation. This power reduction can also be understood as a capacity increase, especially in radio networks based on Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), such as the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) technology. The aim of this paper is to show the possibility and the opportunity to save energy or to increase the capacity in cellular networks when the users are indirectly guided to optimize their UE locations. In this study, energy and capacity optimization is verified for residential indoor users in the measurements where the users are served by signals coming from several outdoor Base Stations (BSs) in a typical urban environment. The results obtained show that a path loss (PL) improvement of up to 10-25 dB can be achieved when the user locations are optimized and the signals are coming from the outdoor BSs.