Automated cell planning to improve network rollout

The use of automated cell planning techniques has become more widespread in recent years, due to the improvements in both network quality and cost that have been demonstrated. The paper describes an optimisation algorithm for cell planning based on simulated annealing, which is used to investigate the effect of several strategies for planning the staged roll out of cellular networks. Techniques to balance the various objectives of different stages of rollout are described, and the improvements possible are demonstrated using practical problems.