Base station antenna tilt for load balancing

The coverage shaping and interference reduction ability of base station antenna tilt are important tools in cellular network optimization. Through tilt changes, the coverage area of a serving cell may also be either reduced or expanded. Therefore, antenna tilt has the potential to be used for load balancing purposes. This paper gives an overview of base station antennas performance and antenna tilt. Simulations are performed in order to determine the impact of tilt changes when used for load balancing. The results show that while antenna tilt load balancing can improve the Grade of Service (GoS) in a congested cell, it will also influence the user bit rates and total cell throughput for both the congested cell and the neighbors.