Quality indicator matrices and their contribution to WCDMA network design

A known characteristic of wide-band code-division multiple-access (WCDMA) networks is the interdependence or coupling between network parameters, namely, a change of one parameter in a given base station can impact the performance of several other base stations. The assessment of the coupling between couple of base stations can be useful for both quality evaluation and for efficient design processes. This paper presents indicator matrices that characterize the interaction between any couple of base stations in terms of interference and macrodiversity. Three applications based on the indicator matrices are developed: a design heuristic for optimizing the network performance; the computation of a set of base stations, denoted as influence set, which are most coupled with a given base station; and a systematic methodology for partitioning the network into disjoint groups of base stations using a clustering approach. Detailed examples illustrate the effectiveness of the indicator matrix approach.