Radio networks for professional use in public safety, transportation, utilities, and industry must provide reliable communication for mission critical applications. The use of appropriate design parameter and planning procedures is crucial to achieve the required network performance.

This course provides a solid understanding of how to design and plan networks for critical communications using digital radio technologies like TETRA, DMR or LTE/5G.

The course follows the typical steps of radio network planning from definition of coverage thresholds, over first network design and coverage planning to the development and analysis of frequency plans. Practical considerations and tasks including site selection and antenna configurations are discussed by means of photos and documents originating from real-life networks. Live calculations with a planning tool are used to illustrate effects of site selection and site and network configuration. Supporting the practical exercises, theoretical elements of the course include the principles of radio propagation, link budgets, the determination of coverage thresholds and capacity considerations. The course will be presented as classroom training with slides, interactive tool calculations and exercises to be done by the participants.

Course Objectives

After completing the course, delegates will be familiar with the typical procedures for RF network planning for radio technologies like TETRA, DMR and LTE/5G. They know how to define planning criteria for RF networks and understand the underlying technical and theoretical approaches.

Intended for

This course is intended for those who have basic knowledge in radio network planning, who are interested in radio network planning for critical communications networks and who may be employed in telecoms regulators, telecoms operators, and utility and transportation companies. 

Contents

• Targets and procedures for radio network planning
  
• System parameter and architecture of critical communication networks
  
• Definition of coverage and capacity targets
  
• Antenna configurations, site selection and coverage planning
  
• Capacity considerations
  
• Frequency planning