Capacity Optimization

This chapter introduces the long‐term evolution (LTE) network capacity limits and discusses ways to improve the performance during high traffic events (mass events). The highest loaded cells (in terms of data volume and resource utilization) from several different mass events are used to show the process of capacity bottleneck analysis. The average user traffic profile changes greatly during the mass event compared to a normal traffic condition and typically the uplink traffic volume exceeds the downlink traffic volume during the highest loaded time. Therefore, the uplink inter‐cell interference control becomes crucial from end‐user performance point of view. The downlink interference control is very important from the throughput per user point of view and due to the physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) capacity. The signalling load and number of connected users per eNodeB and cell during the mass event has to be carefully dimensioned.