Estimating Cell Capacity From Network Measurements in a Multi-Service LTE System

In this paper, a method for estimating cell capacity from network measurements in a multiservice long-term evolution (LTE) system is presented. Unlike previous work, the proposed method takes into account multiple service-specific constraints, including both delay and throughput constraints. For this purpose, services are first classified by their quality-of-service (QoS) class identifier (QCI). Then, several multivariate linear regression equations are used to estimate the value of the different service-specific QoS indicators from network performance statistics collected on a cell basis. The output of the method is the maximum value of a previously selected traffic capacity indicator per cell ensuring that all QoS constraints are fulfilled. Method assessment is based on data taken from a live LTE network. Results show that cell capacity estimation is robust, provided that enough data are available for each service.