Users in cells: A data traffic analysis

We present a large-scale cell based measurement analysis of the user behavior in a live operational HSDPA network. The motivations are: first, to understand the statistical properties of users in cells for refining network planning procedures; and second, to provide realistic traffic models for simulations of cellular packet-oriented networks. We provide an analysis of mean cell load over daytime, as well as models for short-term cell load in terms of user activity and throughput. Furthermore, an evaluation of user-sessions with respect to duration and mean throughput is given. Our findings lead to four different models reflecting realistic user-traffic load of cellular networks. To verify the concept we present respective simulations which investigate multiuser-scheduling in an LTE-network. They show that conventional simulation settings can lead to an overestimation of performance.