WCDMA data based LTE site selection scheme in LTE deployment

LTE site selection is a vital stage for the LTE deployment. Most site selection schemes optimise the site location to improve the network performance, e.g. system coverage, successful access probability etc. However, in the practical LTE deployment, telecom operators preferentially reuse existing 2G/3G sites in order to reduce the Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) and the Operational Expenditure (OPEX). This paper proposes a novel WCDMA data based LTE site selection (WDLSS) scheme. The WDLSS scheme analyses five factors of existing WCDMA sites, including the height, the density, the signal power, the coverage control and the interference. Then the WDLSS scheme ranks each site according to the optimisation difficulty of above five factors. Finally, we apply the WDLSS scheme into the LTE deployment in a China's city. Results show it can assist telecom operators to be aware of each site's detailed problems.