G.1023: Framework for capacity assessment of packet data services in mobile networks
The present document provides a framework for capacity assessment of packet-data services in mobile networks.
Mobile-network capacity is an underlying factor in all QoS aspects of a packet-data based mobile network due to the shared-resource properties of such networks. It is therefore desirable to achieve a basic understanding of related properties and corresponding performance indicators. Measuring network capacity takes, however, significantly more effort and resources, in the sense that a direct measurement of capacity requires a massive effort in terms of resources, which practically creates the requirement to use assessments.
This Recommendation therefore provides a systematic approach to describe and characterize methods for assessment of packet-data based mobile networks, and presents the respective framework.
Spatial resolution is an important element of this framework, i.e. the recognition that network capacity is not a quantity which is uniform over the entire network, or large areas of it. Rather, due to the cellular nature of such networks, capacity, and therefore also QoS and QoE properties, are spatially different.