Approximate Analytical Models
for Dual-Band GSM Networks Design and Planning
Michela Meo and Marco Ajmone Marsan
Dipartimento di Elettronica
Politecnico di Torino
10129 Torino, Italy
fmichela,ajmoneg@polito.it
Abstract— In this paper we consider dual-band GSM networks, where
voice and data services are offered to users moving over an area covered
with overlapping macrocells and microcells. For this wireless network con-
text we develop simple approximate analytical models of the system dynam-
ics, and we exploit such analytical models for the design and planning of the
critical system parameters, with particular attention to the number of traf-
fic channels to be activated within macrocells.
Keywords— GSM Networks, Resource Planning, Performance analysis,
Approximations.
I. I NTRODUCTION
The new version of the GSM standard is based on the use of
two separate frequency bands, around 900 MHz and 1.8 GHz,
respectively. Cells served by frequencies in the 900 MHz band
are rather large (up to 35 km around the base station), whereas
cells served by frequencies in the 1.8 GHz band are much
smaller (typically less than 1 km), due to the much worse prop-
agation characteristics of microwaves in the latter frequency
range through the atmosphere. For this reason, cells served by
frequencies in the 900 MHz band are normally called “macro-
cells”, whereas cells served by frequencies in the 1.8 GHz band
are often called “microcells”.
The main advantage relating to the use of microcells in a GSM
network lies in an improved spatial reuse of frequencies, hence
in substantial capacity increases, with the consequent possibility
of offering, in addition to telephony, data services at medium-
high rates (up to hundreds of kb/s), and even multimedia ser-
vices through the integration of voice and data traffic flows.
The main disadvantage relating to the use of microcells in a
GSM network lies in the fact that, given the user mobility pat-
tern, the number of handovers during a connection increases for
decreasing cell size. This can be a critical factor, since the de-
sign and planning of cellular communication networks aim at
meeting specified constraints on handover failure probabilities.
More precisely, the design and planning of GSM networks are
based on a number of performance parameters, among which
are: i) the average number of active calls within a cell, which
is an indirect metric of the revenues generated by the installed
equipment; ii) the handover failure probability, which must be
kept very low in order to avoid user dissatisfaction; iii) the new
call blocking probability (the probability that a new call can-
not be established due to the lack of free channels), which must
be kept small, specially if multiple operators offer mobile tele-
phony services in the same area.
This work was supported in part by the Italian National Research Council.
The design and planning of GSM networks require accurate
models for the computation of the number of frequencies to be
activated in cells (each frequency can support up to eight traffic
channels), so as to obtain acceptable performance. Markovian
models have been traditionally used for the design and plan-
ning of mobile cellular telephony networks, considering one
cell at a time (see for example [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]).
While this approach proved adequate for networks comprising
only macrocells, it cannot be directly transferred to the dual-
band environment, where the minimum network element that
has to be considered consists of one macrocell and all the mi-
crocells comprised within the macrocell. This network element
will be called a “cell cluster”. This subsystem is rather com-
plex for the direct development of Markovian models. For this
reason, approximate models were proposed in the literature. In
[8], [9], [10] the flow of users from microcell to macrocell is
based on a Markov Modulated Poisson Process representation,
while in [11] the same flow of users is derived from the com-
putation of the average residual service time. The approach we
adopt in this paper to support design and planning of dual-band
GSM networks, instead, is similar to the one in [12]. We focus
on networks where users exhibit different mobility patterns; we
also extend our approach to cope with networks where different
classes of service are provided to end users in terms of different
bandwidth requirements.
The paper is organized as follows. In Section II we de-
scribe the characteristics of the cellular mobile communication
network, together with the probabilistic assumptions that are
needed to describe the system dynamics with Markov processes.
In this first description we consider different user mobility pat-
terns, but just one service class. We then present the approx-
imate model and its solution: Sections III and IV respectively
describe the models of the microcells and of the macrocell. In
Section V we derive expressions for the performance indices
of interest. Resource planning strategies are illustrated in Sec-
tion VI, where numerical results are also shown and discussed.
An extension of the basic model allowing data connections to
be also considered, is presented in Section VII. Section VIII
concludes the paper.
II. S YSTEM AND M ODELING A SSUMPTIONS
A dual-band GSM network is considered, where each cell
(microcell or macrocell) is served by a different base station
(called Base Transceiver Station – BTS – in GSM jargon). We
focus on a particular area, covered by one macrocell and m

Fig. 1. One cell cluster comprising seven microcells
microcells (one cell cluster), and assume that the macrocell is
equipped with N (M ) channels, while each microcell is equipped
with N (m) channels. We initially only consider voice services,
that require one channel per call; then we shall also extend our
techniques to data services requiring several channels per call.
Calls taking place in different cells (micro or macro) are as-
sumed not to interfere with each other.
Two classes of users request services from the network. Fast
users represent mobile terminals (MTs) used inside moving ve-
hicles to establish voice connections, while slow users account
for MTs used by pedestrians. Fast users are assumed to be
served only by macrocells, while slow users are preferentially
served by microcells, but if no channels are available within
their microcell, their call is transferred to the macrocell. The
rationale for this assumption is that the allocation of microcell
channels to fast users may entail an excessive number of han-
dovers, while the allocation of macrocell channels to slow users
may lead to a waste of resources, due to the reduced spatial
reuse of macrocell frequencies. In order to avoid the risk that
the quality of service perceived by fast users degrades due to
slow users accessing the macrocell, fast users can be favored
by reserving Nf channels in the macrocell for their exclusive
use. This means that slow user requests are accepted as long as
more than Nf channels are free in the macrocell, whereas fast
user requests are accepted until some free channel exists in the
macrocell. Different system policies can however be easily ac-
counted for, with modifications of the model presented in this
paper.
A pictorial representation of a cell cluster containing seven
microcells is given in Fig. 1.
Users can generate requests for new calls, which are estab-
lished provided that channels are available in the cell (fast users
only contend for channels in macrocells, while slow users are
preferentially assigned channels in their microcell, but if none
of those are available, they can also access the unreserved chan-
nels in the macrocell); otherwise the new call request is rejected.
Fast users can roam from macrocell to macrocell during calls:
an active fast user (i.e., a fast user that has established a call) that
roams from a macrocell to another, must execute a handover pro-
cedure transferring his call from the channel in the old macro-
cell to a channel in the new macrocell without interrupting the
communication. If no channel is available in the new macrocell
entered by the fast user, the handover fails and the call must be
terminated (or dropped).
The handover procedure for slow users is quite similar, with
the additional complexity that when no channels are available
in the new microcell, the call can access unreserved channels in
the macrocell comprising the newly entered microcell. Once a
slow user is allocated a macrocell channel, it needs not handover
until the macrocell border is reached.
The call arrival process into each cell cluster is governed by
four different dynamics, corresponding to: i) new fast user call
requests, ii) new slow user call requests, iii) incoming fast user
handover requests, iv) incoming slow user handover requests.
The process of call departures from the cell cluster is also
driven by four types of events: i) completions of macrocell calls,
ii) completions of microcell calls, iii) handover requests out of
the macrocell, iv) handover requests out of the microcells.
In the development of the analytical model to support the de-
sign and planning process we introduce the following assump-
tions:
 The aggregate process of new call requests from (fast or slow)
users within a (macro or micro) cell is Poisson, with parameter
(M ) (fast users in macrocells) or (m) (slow users in micro-
cells) ((M ) and (m) are estimated from the user population
and the system geometry).
 The flow of incoming handover requests from other (macro or
(M )
micro) cells is Poisson with rate h (fast users in macrocells)
(m) (M ) (m)
or h (slow users in microcells) (h and h are derived
by balancing the incoming and outgoing handover flows, as ex-
plained below).
 The call duration is an exponentially distributed random vari-
able with parameter  ( is obtained from the observation of the
user behavior).
 The time between two successive handover requests of a call
(the call dwell time) is assumed to be an exponentially dis-
(M )
tributed random variable with parameter h;f (fast users in
(M ) (m)
macrocells) or h;s (slow users in macrocells) or h (slow
(M ) (M ) (m)
users in microcells) (h;f , h;s and h are obtained from
the observation of the user mobility).
The impact of these exponential assumptions will be dis-
cussed later on, showing that some of those can be released with
no additional complexity in the model.
III. T HE M ICROCELL M ODEL
Each microcell is modeled as an M/M/K/0 queue with K =
N (m) servers which represent traffic channels available in the
microcell.
The process of call request arrivals into the microcell is the
superposition of two Poisson processes corresponding to new
call requests (with parameter (m) ) and to incoming handover
(m)
requests (with parameter h ).
The call duration and the call dwell time are modeled by
random variables with negative exponential distribution whose
 (m)  1
means are respectively  1 and h ; the service time of
the M/M/K/0 queue representing the microcell is thus exponen-
(m)
tial with rate  + h .
The assumption of exponentially distributed call holding
times is known to be inadequate for data services, such as In-
ternet access, but recently some researchers have even argued
that the exponential assumption is not realistic in the context of
telephony, and may lead to drastic approximations (see for ex-
ample [13]); other distributions, such as Pareto, phase-type or
Weibull, are today much more fashionable.
However, as long as we can exploit M/G/K/0 queuing models,
we can take advantage of the fact that their steady-state distri-
bution is insensitive to the service time distribution type, de-
pending only on the service time average value, and we can thus
adopt an M/M/K/0 queuing model for convenience.
Furthermore, some authors also questioned the assumption
of exponential mobility models (see for example [14]); in [15]
the handover request arrival process is taken to be Poisson, but
the mobility model assumes an hyper-Erlang distribution for the
dwell time. Again, since the steady-state distribution of a pure-
loss system is insensitive to the service time distribution, we can
adopt an exponential mobility model for convenience, paying
attention to the evaluation of average values.
Let  (i) be the steady-state probability that i channels are
busy in the microcell. From classical queueing theory, we have:
i
 (i) =
i!
 (0) for 1 iN m ( )
with
0 (m) 1
(m) (m) NX i
 h A
and  (0) = 
+
=
 + (hm) i=0
i!
(m)
The incoming handover flow h is not known a-priori. How-
ever, we can assume that in steady-state the average handover
flow entering a cell equals the average handover flow leaving
(out)
the cell, h ; the latter can be computed as:
(m)
NX
(out)
h = i (hm)  (i)
i=1
(m)
Then, h can be iteratively computed by imposing that
(hm) = (out)
h . This approach has been widely and success-
fully used in the literature when considering individual cells,
and corresponds to an assumption of independence among cell
behaviors. This independence assumption is justified by the re-
sults presented in [16], where it was shown that more complex
(multi-cell) models do not lead to significant improvements in
the accuracy of performance predictions, and was validated by
comparison with simulations in [2], [3], [4].
The probability that all channels in the microcell are busy,
P (m) , is given by the Erlang-B formula, and in our notation
P (m) =  (N (m) ).
When a new call request finds all microcell channels busy, it
tries to access a channel in the macrocell. In order to accurately
model the macrocell, we need to characterize this overflow pro-
cess, which forms the arrival process of slow user call requests
at the macrocell.
The results in [17] state that the overflow process from a
GI/M/K/0 loss system is a renewal process with interval distri-
bution whose Laplace transform can be derived from the recur-
sive formula:
K 1 (s + )
K (s) = (1)
1 K 1 (s) + K 1 (s + )
where 0 (s) is the characteristic function of the interarrival
times at the queue, and  1 is the mean service time. We can
easily specialize (1) to our case, that corresponds to an M/M/K/0
queue with K = N (m) , obtaining:
(m) + (hm)
0 (s) =
s + (m) + (hm)
From the inverse transform of (1) we can obtain the distribution
of the interarrival times of the overflow process of call requests
of slow users from a microcell towards the macrocell. It can be
shown that this distribution is hyper-exponential:
(m)
NX
f (t) = ai i e i t t  0 (2)
i=0
with
(m)
NX
ai = 1
i=0
1
The computation of coefficients ai and parameters i is rather
difficult. Furthermore, after having obtained this distribution,
we still have to consider the superposition of m such processes
in order to characterize the overall overflow process entering the
macrocell from all m microcells. Thus, instead of exactly deriv-
ing (2), we approximate it.
In general, the superposition of m renewal processes is not a
renewal process, but, as m tends to infinity, it tends to a Poisson
process (see [18]). We rely on this result, and approximate the
slow user call request process overflowing from all microcells to
the macrocell with a Poisson process with parameter fo . For the
computation of fo we operate in the following way. We derive
the average number of calls which overflow from a microcell in
the time unit:
 
fo(m) = (m) + (hm)  (N (m) )
and we set:
 
fo = m fo(m) = m (m) + (hm)  (N (m) )
Of course, the accuracy of this approximation increases for
increasing number of microcells in the cell cluster. In order to
validate the approximation, we used a simulator of the call-level
behavior of a cluster comprising m microcells and one macro-
cell, and for a given value of m we measured the coefficient of
variation of the interarrival intervals for the overflow process out
of a single microcell and for the superposition of the overflow
processes from all microcells. In Fig. 2 we report the coeffi-
cient of variation values versus the load per channel, defined as
=N (m) , obtained from simulation experiments, assuming that
both the mobility model and the call duration are exponential,
(m)
with 1= = 180 s, h = =2 and N (m) = 16. The solid
 due to the characteristics of call duration and dwell time for fast
4.5
users.
Denoting by f and s the loads generated by fast and slow
4.0 microcell
m=2 users, respectively, we have:
m=4
(M ) + (hM )
Coefficient of variation

3.5 m=8
m=16 f =
M)
 + (h;f
3.0
fo
s =
M)
2.5  + (h;s

2.0 The steady-state probability  (i; j ) that i channels are busy

serving fast user calls and j channels are busy serving slow user
1.5 calls is:
i j
 (i; j ) = f s  (0; 0) (3)
1.0 i! j !
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 for all states s = (i; j ) in the state space S :
Load per channel, ρ/N(m)
Fig. 2. Coefficient of variation of interarrival intervals of overflow processes; for S f i; j ji
= ( ) + j  N (M ) ^ j  N (M ) Nf g (4)
individual microcells (solid line), and for the superposition of m overflow
processes (dashed lines) where Nf is the number of channels reserved to fast users.
The value of  (0; 0) is obtained from the normalization equa-
tion: 0 1 1
line refers to overflow processes out of individual microcells, X if js
which of course do not depend on m. Dashed lines instead pro-  (0; 0) =  A
vide results for the superposition of m overflow processes, with (i;j ) 2S i! j !
m = 2; 4; 8; 16. We can see that as m increases, the coefficient
of variation rapidly approaches 1, which is the value character- The number of states is rather small, of the order of (N (M ) )2 =2,
izing a Poisson process. The convergence is rather fast, and even so that the normalization is not critical, even for large systems.
(M )
when m is smaller than in typical dual-band GSM networks, the The value of h is derived by balancing incoming and out-
coefficient of variation is close to 1 for most load values. More- going handover flows for fast users. The outgoing handover flow
over, the coefficient of variation gets very close to 1 for any m is computed as:
at higher values of the channel load, which are most interesting X M)
for the system design. Indeed, low channel loads surely lead (out)
h = i (h;f  (i; j )
to acceptable performance; the situations where the system de- 2S
(i;j )

sign instruments must be accurate refer to high loads, that may

The blocking probabilities for slow and fast users, respec-
induce unacceptable performance. (M ) (M )
tively denoted by Ps and Pf , are given by:
X X
 (i; j ) and Pf(M ) =
IV. T HE M ACROCELL M ODEL
Ps(M ) =  (i; j ) (5)
The behavior of the macrocell is more complex than that of (i;j ) 2Ss 2Sf
(i;j )
the microcell, due to the presence of two classes of users (slow
and fast). Having assumed that all the macrocell dynamics have with
Markovian characteristics, we can model the macrocell as an
M/M/K/0 queue with two classes of users, and thus evaluate the
Ss = f i; j ji
( ) +j = N (M ) _ j = N (M ) Nf g
performance of this system with generalizations of Erlang’s loss Sf = f i; j ji
( ) +j = N
(M )
g
formula.
For slow users, the arrival process at the macrocell is as-
sumed to be Poisson with rate fo , and the call duration and For both classes, the blocking probabilities for new call and han-
dwell time are random variables with negative exponential dis- dover requests coincide.
(M )
tributions with rates respectively equal to  and h;s . Thus, V. P ERFORMANCE I NDICES
the service time is a random variable with negative exponential
(M ) The performance indices that we consider in this paper for
distribution with rate  + h;s .
GSM network design and planning are the call blocking proba-
For fast users, the arrival process at the macrocell is the su- bilities, i.e., the probabilities that calls are not successfully com-
perposition of two Poisson processes corresponding to new call pleted, because of either a failure in the access to the system at
requests and incoming handover requests (with rates (M ) and call setup, or a failure during handover. We denote such proba-
(hM ) , respectively); the fast user service time is a random vari- bilities by Bf in the case of fast users and Bs in the case of slow
(M )
able with negative exponential distribution with rate  + h;f , users.
 The probabilities Bf and Bs can be computed as the comple- TABLE I
VALUES OF THE PARAMETERS FOR THE NUMERICAL RESULTS
ment to 1 of the probabilities of successful completion, which
in turn are obtained as the sum of all conditional probabilities
that the call succeeds, given that it requested h handovers, times Parameter Value
the probability of requesting h handovers; for example, for fast N (m) 16
1= 180s
users:
M)
1
X (h;f 5
1 Bf = P f success j h handovers g P fh handovers g M)
(h;s 0
h=0 (hm) 
Denoting by Hf the probability that a fast user releases a (M ) : ; : s
[0 1 0 05℄
1

channel because of handover, rather than call completion, we (m) 2

(M )

have:
M)
(h;f
Hf = M)
 + (h;f The slow user call blocking probability, Bs , can finally be
Assuming independence for failures of the different han- written as:
dovers within the duration of a fast user call, we get: 1 
X 
1 
X h+1 Bs = 1 Pa(1) Pa(2) + Pa(3)
Bf = 1 1 Pf(M ) Hfh (1 Hf ) h=0
h=0
  P (m) (1 Ps(M ) ) + (1 P (m) )(1 Hs )
1 Pf(M ) (1 Hf ) = 1 (7)
= 1   (6) 1 (1 P (m) )Hs
1 1 Pf(M ) Hf
VI. R ESOURCE P LANNING
For the computation of the call blocking probability for slow
In the context of dual-band GSM networks, the most ‘valu-
users, Bs , we have to take into account that when a slow user
able’ resources are macrocell channels, since they permit a lim-
attempts to access the system, it fails if no channel is available
ited spatial reuse, and serve fast user calls as well as slow user
either in the microcell or in the macrocell (the probabilities of
(M ) calls that cannot find free channels in microcells. Therefore,
such events are denoted by P (m) and Ps , respectively). careful resource planning in macrocells is a must.
Let Hs be the probability that a slow user that succeeded in In this section we consider three different situations, as re-
establishing a connection in a microcell, leaves the microcell gards resource planning in macrocells.
because of handover:
In the first case, the number of channels available in the con-
(hm) sidered macrocell is taken to be fixed, and system parameter
Hs =
 + (hm)
values are sought, such that a specified call blocking probabil-
ity can be guaranteed to fast users. The approach that is used to
Neglecting handovers of slow users at the macrocell borders provide quality of service (QoS) guarantees to fast users consists
(which are rather infrequent), a slow user call that was accepted in reserving some channels for their exclusive use; the remain-
in the system completes with success (possibly after some han- ing channels are shared between fast and slow user calls. Re-
dovers in other microcells) either in a microcell or in the macro- source planning in this case amounts to the identification of the
cell. We recognize three different cases of successful comple- minimum number of reserved channels necessary to guarantee
tion of a slow user call: the desired QoS to fast users, controlling the effect that channel
 the call completes in the macrocell, where at call setup a chan- reservation has on the performance of slow users.
nel was allocated, because no channel was available in the mi- In the second case, instead, the resource planning objective
crocell; the probability of this event is: is taken to be guaranteeing a fair treatment to slow and fast
users, with no channel reservations, i.e., deriving the number
Pa(1) = P (m) (1 Ps(M ) ) of channels necessary to guarantee that the call blocking proba-
 the call completes in a microcell different from the one in bilities for both classes of users are smaller than a given thresh-
which at call setup a channel was allocated, after h successful old. Resource planning in this case must take into account that
handovers; the probability of this event is: call blocking probabilities depend on mobility models, which
are different for the two classes of users.
Pa(2) (h) = (1 P (m) )h+1 Hsh (1 Hs ) Finally, in the third case, a hybrid approach is taken to re-
source planning, trying to guarantee the same QoS to both
 the call completes in the macrocell, but at call setup a channel
classes of users; some channels are reserved to fast users, so
was allocated in a microcell, and after h successful handovers,
that the total number of channels in the macrocell is minimized.
the failure of the (h + 1) st handover forced the call to access
a channel in the macrocell; the probability of this event is: The following three subsections separately consider the three
cases, using the parameter values shown in Table I for the gen-
Pa(3) (h) = (1 P (m) )h+1 Hsh+1 P (m) (1 Ps(M ) ) eration of numerical results, unless otherwise stated.
 It must be noted that all planning procedures that will be de-
scribed in the following three subsections are based on itera-
tions, and are thus made possible by the simplicity of the micro-
cell and macrocell models that were previously described. 30
A. QoS guarantees to fast users B=0.10
B=0.01
In this situation, fast users must be served according to spec-
ified QoS guarantees, which are expressed in terms of an upper 25

Number of reserved channels, N f

bound B on their call blocking probability. Slow users, instead,
receive a best-effort kind of service, because no bound is guar-
anteed on their call blocking probability. 20
In order to provide the desired QoS to fast users, Nf channels
are reserved for their exclusive use in the macrocell.
In order to guarantee the desired QoS to fast users, the macro-
cell has to be designed in such a way that fast user call requests 15
are refused with probability not larger than B , both at call setup,
and at every handover.
Given the value for Bf , from (6) we can obtain the maximum
(M )
10
value that Pf can assume in order to guarantee Bf = B :

B
Pf(M )  1
1
(8)
1 Hf B 5
0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1
In order to guarantee the desired QoS to fast users, the number Fast user traffic, λ(M)
(M )
of reserved channels, Nf , must be such that probability Pf is
f
Fig. 3. Minimum values of N that guarantee a specified QoS, N ( M ) = 32
as specified in (8).
Suppose that the number of channels in the macrocell is fixed
and equal to N (M ) . We can plot curves that allow the identifica-
tion of the minimum acceptable value for the number of chan-
nels to be reserved to fast users in the macrocell, so as to guaran-
tee their QoS. The plots in Fig. 3 show the number of channels
reserved to fast users at the macrocell necessary to guarantee
the QoS corresponding to values of B equal to 0.1 and 0.01, 1e+00
with N (M ) = 32. In the plots we assume that the minimum
admissible value for Nf is 7. Of course, as the macrocell traf-
fic increases, the number of channels to be reserved to guarantee
the desired QoS increases. The plots in Fig. 4 show the values of
Fast user blocking probability, Bf

1e-01
blocking probability experienced by fast users when the number
of reserved channels is as dictated by graph in Fig. 3.
The curves in Fig. 5 instead report the values of Nf required
to guarantee Bf  0:1 for different values of the average num-
ber of handovers per call, denoted by E [Hf ℄. Observe that the 1e-02
differences in Nf induced by varying the handover rates are not
drastic. The reason for this behavior is that the effective macro-
cell load does not change significantly with the handover rate:
(M )
the higher is the handover rate h;f , the greater is the number 1e-03 B=0.10
of incoming handovers, but also the smaller is the time a user B=0.01
spends in the cell.
Reserving channels to fast users to guarantee their QoS can
deteriorate the QoS perceived by slow users. This fact must be
controlled, and possibly avoided, in order to reduce the dissatis- 1e-04
faction of slow users. Consider for example the case N (M ) = 32 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1
and B = 0:1. The plots in Fig. 6 report the average numbers Fast user traffic, λ(M)
of channels used by fast users, by slow users, and overall. As f
Fig. 4. Blocking probability for fast users when N is set to guarantee a specific
M
already observed, as (M ) increases, Nf increases also. Corre- QoS, N ( ) = 32
spondingly, the average number of channels used by fast users
increases too, while the number of channels used by slow users
decreases. The plots in Fig. 7 report blocking probabilities for
 1e+00

30
E[Hf]=1
E[Hf]=5 1e-01
E[Hf]=10

Blocking probability
25
Number of reserved channels, N f

1e-02
20

15 1e-03 Bf
Bs

10
1e-04
0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1
Fast user traffic, λ(M)
5
0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 Fig. 7. Blocking probabilities with N ( M ) = 32 and Nf set so that Bf  0:1
Fast user traffic, λ(M)

Fig. 5. Minimum values of N that guarantee B f f  0:1 for E [Hf ℄ = 1; 5; 10, fast and slow users, Bf and Bs . Clearly, for high traffic the QoS
N (M ) = 32 perceived by slow users becomes unacceptable, while the QoS
guaranteed to fast users is actually provided.

B. Fair treatment of slow and fast users

The goal of resource planning in this case is to guarantee the
same QoS level to slow and fast users, avoiding channel reser-
vations to favor fast users. The macrocell design is thus based
30 on the selection of the number of channels N (M ) (with Nf = 0)
total such that for a given QoS level B :
fast 
25 slow Bf  B
Bs  B
(9)

The call blocking probabilities Bf and Bs depend on the user

Number of busy channels

20
mobility pattern; and, for slow users, also on the microcell pa-
(M )
rameters. For this reason, the values of probabilities Pf and
(M )
15 Ps which guarantee that the bound on Bf and Bs is met are
(M )
different. Pf is given by (8), while from (7) it can be derived
(M )
that Ps must be such that:
10
Hs + Hs P (m) )B
Ps(M ) 
(1

P (m)
5
The plots in Fig. 8 report the values of N (M ) that are neces-
sary to guarantee a QoS level B = 0:1, versus increasing values
0 of (M ) ; the average number of busy channels, for fast and slow
0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 users, and total, are also shown in the same graph. We can see
Fast user traffic, λ(M) that both N (M ) and the average number of channels used by
slow users grow sharply with the input traffic. Instead, the av-
with N ( ) = 32 and N set so that B M
Fig. 6. Number of busy channels in the macrocell: total, for fast and slow users
0:1 f f erage number of channels used by fast users grows much more
slowly. This is reflected by the plots in Fig. 9, that show the
blocking probabilities for fast and slow users. While the val-
ues of N (M ) are just enough to guarantee the QoS to fast users,
 100
t=0.5
t=1.0
100 t=1.5
N(M) 80
t=2.0
tot
fast
slow
80

Number of channels
60
Number of channels

60
40

40
20

20
0
0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05
Fast user traffic, λ(M)
0
M
Fig. 10. N ( ) set so that B = 0:1 is guaranteed with no channel reservation
0.01 0.02 0.03
Fast user traffic, λ(M)
0.04 0.05
m M
and ( ) = t( ) ; t = 0:5; 1:0; 1:5; 2:0

M
Fig. 8. Average number of busy channels in the macrocell: total, for fast and
slow users, with no channel reservation, and N ( ) set so that B = 0:1 is
guaranteed to both fast and slow users
the service experienced by slow users is much better than what
needs to be guaranteed.
Similar results are reported in Fig. 10, where we consider dif-
ferent values for the slow user traffic, setting (m) = t(M ) ,
with t = 0:5; 1:0; 1:5; 2:0.

C. Fair treatment with channel reservation

1e+00 The numerical results in Fig. 8 and Fig. 9 clearly show that the
access of fast users to macrocell channels is the critical element
in resource planning. Indeed, with no channel reservation, in
1e-01 order to guarantee the QoS experienced by fast users, the num-
ber of channels in the macrocell, N (M ) , has to be chosen rather
large, and for those values of N (M ) the QoS perceived by slow
Blocking probability

1e-02 users is much better than what needs to be guaranteed. For this
reason, a reasonable approach to resource planning consists in
the reservation of some channels to fast users, aiming at a condi-
1e-03 tion in which fast users and slow users perceive about the same
QoS. By so doing, for a fixed QoS guarantee B , the total number
of channels in the macrocell can be smaller than with no channel
1e-04 reservation.
The macrocell planning problem in this case thus consists in
the determination of a pair of values (N (M ) ; Nf ), such that con-
dition (9) holds, and N (M ) is minimized.
1e-05 Bf
Bs
For the solution of this problem it is possible to operate in the
following way:
1e-06
0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05
 Set Nf = 0 and find N (M ) such that condition (9) holds.
Fast user traffic, λ(M)  Increase Nf until Bf becomes close to Bs .
 Decrease N (M ) to the smallest values which still guarantees
Fig. 9. Blocking probabilities with no channel reservation, and N (M ) set so (9).
that B = 0:1 is guaranteed to both fast and slow users
The plots in Fig. 11 show the values of N (M ) (solid line)
and Nf (dashed line) that result from the application of the
above procedure, for increasing values of (M ) . Up to about
(M ) = 0:025, the service provided to slow users by the re-

sources in the microcells is so good that all channels in the 100

macrocell can be reserved to fast users. For higher values of N(M)
Nf
traffic, the service offered to slow users in the microcells dete-
riorates, and the macrocell must serve also slow user calls, in 80
order to meet their QoS requirements.
The plots in Fig. 12 show that the QoS perceived by slow and

Number of channels
fast users for high traffic values is about the same.
Comparing the curves of Fig. 11 with those reported in Fig. 8, 60
we can observe that with this type of macrocell planning, the
values of N (M ) are up to 30% smaller than in the case of no
channel reservation. This is a remarkable improvement. 40
VII. E XTENSION TO DATA C ONNECTIONS
In this section we briefly describe how the proposed planning
approach can be extended to deal with GSM networks where 20
data connections requiring greater bandwidth than voice calls
are provided to users with low mobility.
In order to simplify the system scenario, we associate data 0
connections with slow users, and voice calls with fast users, but 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05
a further extension to the case in which slow and fast users can Fast user traffic, λ(M)
generate both voice and data connection requests is possible.
Each data connection is assumed to require Nd > 1 channels. Fig. 11. N ( M ) and Nf set so that B = 0:1 is guaranteed and N (M ) is
minimum
The microcell model remains the same as presented in Sec-
tion III, except for the fact that now the maximum number of
simultaneously active connections is b NNd . In particular, the
(m)
Sf = f i; j ji
( ) + jNd = N (M ) g
analysis of the microcell allows the derivation of the parameters
of the overflow process of data calls towards the macrocell.
Two alternatives are possible when data connections reach the
macrocell: the data connection bandwidth requirements can ei- The planning strategies presented before can be used also in
ther be satisfied with Nd channels, or, trying to save the valuable this context.
resources of the macrocell, data connections are forced to use a In order to model systems where data connections overflow-
(M )
smaller amount of bandwidth, and are provided with just one ing to the macrocell are allocated just one channel (Nd = 1),
channel. we still use a multi-class model as before; the state space defini-
The multi-class model of the macrocell behavior, presented in tion remains as in (4).
Section IV, can be used to cope with this system configuration,
If we assume that the average duration of data connections
provided that some changes are introduced.
(M )
depends on the allocated bandwidth, the data connection com-
We initially consider the first case, where Nd = Nd chan-
pletion rate at the macrocell, instead of being  is in this case
nels are provided to data connections at the macrocell. =Nd . Therefore, the data traffic load at the macrocell, s , is
The macrocell state is again defined by the pair (i; j ) where given by:
i is the number of voice calls, and j is the number of data con-
fo
nections. s = M)
The state space of the resulting model is: =Nd + (h;s
S f i; j ji
= ( ) + jNd  N (M ) ^ jNd  N (M ) Nf g
Call blocking probabilities remain as in (5).
where Nf is, as before, the number of channels reserved to The results generated by this planning procedure in the case
fast users in the macrocell. The steady-state distribution of this of data connections using Nd = 4 microcell channels, and ei-
(M ) (M )
model is as in (3). ther Nd = 1 or N
d = 4 macrocell channels, are reported
The blocking probabilities for data connections (slow users) in Fig. 13, that shows the curves of N (M ) and Nf versus the
and voice calls (fast users) are: macrocell traffic load. Results refer to the planning strategy pre-
X X sented in section VI-C where fair treatment is provided to users
Ps(M ) =  (i; j ) and Pf(M ) =  (i; j ) adopting a channel reservation scheme. We can observe that the
(i;j )2Ss 2Sf
(i;j )
case Nd
(M )
= 1 requires smaller values of N
(M )
, and does not
(M )
with exhibit the fluctuating behavior of the case Nd = 4. We can

conclude that the allocation of just one channel to data connec-

Ss = f i; j ji jNd > N M
( ) +
( )
Nd tions that overflow to the macrocell seems quite interesting from
_j Nd > N M Nf ( )
Nd g the point of view of resource planning.
 100
1e+00 Nd(M)=1
Nd(M)=4

1e-01 80

Number of channels
Blocking probability

1e-02
60

1e-03
40

1e-04

20
1e-05 Bf
Bs

0
1e-06 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05
0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 Fast user traffic, λ(M)
Fast user traffic, λ(M) M
Fig. 13. Minimum value of N ( ) , and corresponding value of N that guar- f
Fig. 12. Blocking probability Bs and Bf when N M ) and Nf are set so that antee B = 0:1 for voice calls and data connections requiring N = 4 d
M
(

B = 0:1 is guaranteed and N (M ) is minimum d

( )
channels at the microcell and N = 1; 4 channels at the macrocell

VIII. C ONCLUSIONS
We presented resource planning strategies for dual-band GSM
networks, where service is offered to users moving over an area
covered with overlapping macrocells and microcells.
Resource planning is based on the iterative solution of simple
approximate analytical models of the dynamics of microcells
and macrocells.
The simplicity of the approximate analytical models is instru-
mental for the accurate design and planning of the system pa-
rameters, considering the provision of services with QoS guar-
antees expressed in terms of the probability of successful com-
pletion of connections.
As an example of the utilization of the approximate analytical
models, in this paper we have illustrated a few approaches for
the optimization of the number of traffic channels to be activated
within macrocells, so as to meet QoS constraints.
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