Soft handover gain measurements and optimisation of a WCDMA network

OrangeUK was the first operator in the UK to have an operational WCDMA trial network and in April 1999 it was the first operator within Europe to make live 3G video calls on its then Fujitsu trial WCDMA network. Since then it has chosen Nokia and more recently Alcatel as its UTRAN vendors and has now rolled out the biggest combined 2G/3G network in the UK. This paper initially describes the work undertaken at Orange, investigating the downlink soft handover gain in a WCDMA network. The paper then provides a brief overview of the WCDMA radio optimisation methodology employed by Orange to optimise its WCDMA network.