Abstract

This paper highlights how an experimental telecommunication infrastructure has been set up and used in order to perform an extensive analysis on a network operator mainly based on the IEEE 802.11 access technology. A traffic measurement testbed is the best way to assess the potential of a network in terms of capacity, performance, etc. We depict how we selected our network elements that reflect the behaviour of a much larger real operator structurally analogous to the smaller sample. In addition to using traffic measurements as a guideline for topology planning, we determine the severity of the impact of other access technologies with overlapping frequency bands. To avoid developing complex mathematical models that reflect the usage patterns of e.g. Bluetooth or Microwave, we perform a set of measurements which show the statistical behaviour of the system. The work done attempts to make use of testbeds to bridge the gap between real measured values and analytically calculated parameters for network planning. Using such an approach in an inductive manner will allow us to optimize the e.g. the network planning process compared to approaches used up to now [1][2][13][14][15].