What strategies can you use to manage capacity and congestion in UMTS networks?

2 Resource management

Another way to manage capacity and congestion is to allocate and optimize the resources of the network. This can be done by using techniques such as admission control, load balancing, handover control, power control, or scheduling. For example, you can use admission control to reject or redirect new requests when the network is overloaded, or use load balancing to distribute the traffic among different cells or carriers. You can also use handover control to transfer users to less congested cells or networks, or use power control to adjust the signal strength and interference levels. You can also use scheduling to prioritize or allocate the resources among different users or services.

3 Network expansion

A third way to manage capacity and congestion is to expand the network capacity and coverage. This can be done by using methods such as adding new cells, sectors, carriers, or equipment, or upgrading the existing ones. For example, you can add new cells to increase the spatial reuse of the spectrum, or add new sectors to improve the directional diversity of the antennas. You can also add new carriers to increase the frequency bandwidth, or add new equipment to enhance the modulation, coding, or multiplexing schemes. You can also upgrade the existing cells, sectors, carriers, or equipment to support higher data rates, lower latency, or better quality.

5 Performance monitoring

A fifth way to manage capacity and congestion is to monitor and evaluate the network performance and user experience. This can be done by using metrics such as throughput, delay, jitter, packet loss, or call drop rate. For example, you can use throughput to measure the data rate of the network, or use delay to measure the time it takes for the data packets to reach their destination. You can also use jitter to measure the variation of the delay, or use packet loss to measure the percentage of the data packets that are lost or corrupted. You can also use call drop rate to measure the frequency of the voice calls that are terminated involuntarily.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?