Carrier Assignment

Specify the carrier definition settings of a transmitter or cell.

On the Project menu, click Edit Project Parameter and click the Sites tab.

Under Sites, select a site and click Edit to launch the Site dialog. Under Antennas, select an antenna and click Edit to launch the Cell dialog where you can specify the settings for the carrier definition of a transmitter, see Figure 1.


Figure 1. The Cell dialog.

Under Transmitter and Receiver Settings, click Assign Carrier to launch the Carrier Assignment dialog, see Figure 2.



Figure 2. The Carrier Assignment dialog.

All available carriers are listed under Available Carriers. Double-click on a carrier to assign to the current transmitter. You will see the current transmitter configuration on the right side.

Click Edit to define the individual settings for the selected transmitter/cell, see Figure 3.



Figure 3. The Carrier dialog.
The following settings can be defined:
Maximum Tx Power
Maximum transmit power of the carrier in dBm or Watt. In case of carrier groups, the specified value applies for each carrier contained in the group.
Definition of Tx Power
See transmitter settings.
Antenna Gain
Gain of the assigned antenna.
Transmitted Signal
This parameter allows the definition of distributed antenna systems (DAS). In DAS all antennas operating on the same carrier transmit the same signal. Because of that all received signals from all antennas in the DAS are superposed. Thus the contributions from the antennas of the DAS are not considered in the calculation of the interference for this carrier. DAS can be activated by selecting the signal index in the drop down list “transmitted signal”. The indices (for example “Signal 1”) of all antennas of the DAS must be the same and all antennas must be on the same carrier of course. If “individual signal” is selected in the drop down list, the antenna belongs to no DAS.
MIMO Stream
In case of a MIMO system, a MIMO stream can be assigned for the carrier.
Parameters of Network Simulation

Mean cell load, mean uplink noise rise and power back off can be defined individually for each transmitter.

Settings for 5G NT
Numerology
In 5G, the numerology μ is a key parameter that sets 5G apart from 4G. It governs the sub-carrier spacing and the slot length.
Additional Gains due to Beamforming
This parameter enable you to approximate the concept of beam forming by a 5G phased-array base station antenna. Instead of running a Monte-Carlo simulation with individual users and beam forming to serve individual mobile devices, you can simulate with either:
  1. an omni-directional base station antenna pattern
  2. an envelope antenna pattern consisting of all possible beams

Both approaches are not complete without specifying additional gains due to beamforming. In case 1, all four fields are available. In case 2, the first two are set to N/A (not applicable) because the gains of the serving beams are already in the envelope pattern. In both approaches, neighboring cells in the simulation produce, with their broader beams, more interference than the real base stations with narrow beams would. The bottom two fields enable you to correct that effect.

Antenna Beams
The number of antenna beams also relates to the concept of beamforming by a 5G phased-array base station antenna. Such an antenna might for several beams at once to serve individual mobile devices. This requires the base station to divide its available power over those beams. The number you enter here divides the available power, and the network-planning results are adjusted accordingly.