Aspects of cellular planning for emergency and safety services in mobile WiMax networks

This work addresses cellular planning aspects for a WiMax (worldwide interoperability for microwave access) point-to-multipoint wireless network to be developed in the region of Beira Interior. It is concentrated in more detail in the district of Covilha, and, particularly, in the urban area of the city, in order to guarantee communications from the Health Science Faculty of University of Beira Interior (HSF/UBI)/ Hospital Pero da Covilha to all central urban area of the city. By having aspects related with the carrier-to-noise and carrier-to-interference ratios into account, one concluded that it is necessary to consider a cellular structure with sectorisation, and cell coverage distances around 3 km. Because this zone is very hilly, the optimization of the choice of the location for base stations is essential; the potentialities of the GIS (geographic information systems) tools were explored to optimise the existence of line of sight coverage in coverage. Future research directions regarding architectures for interoperability and mobile IP, security, and the impact of multimedia applications are also addressed.