Introduction

Our goal in the Subgroup on Standard Scenarios for Frequency Planning is to set up a collection of frequency planning scenarios. In the beginning, the focus of this subgroup will be on fixed (or static) channel assignment problems in GSM networks. In the course of the action, the scope will be enlarged to contain more complex scenarios like dynamic channel assignment, hybrid networks with static and dynamic parts, and networks with a mixture of macro and micro cells.

The collection of scenarios will serve as a benchmark for frequency planning algorithms. The expected results of the bench-marking process are

• the evaluation of the quality of the assignments produced by frequency assignment algorithms, and
• insights to which extend a future increase in traffic can be handled by the use of sophisticated techniques for frequency planning while keeping the use of radio frequency resources fixed.

Furthermore, we want to identify structural properties of the scenarios. Information on structural properties shared by several scenarios will be useful in the design of new frequency assignment algorithms.

We hope that there will be numerous contributions of scenarios. We also hope that many subgroup members will apply their algorithms to those scenarios and present their findings. This way, we gain as much as possible from the joint effort. To facilitate an easy exchange of scenarios, we want to agree on common file formats for this purpose.

Our basic assumption is that we do not want to use any of the file formats of today's commercial tools. This is for two reasons. First, we will suffer from severe restrictions as to which properties of a scenario may be expressed. Even if some of the commercial formats might be fine for the time being, more complex future scenarios will not be adequately represented. Second, we are on the save side as far as proprietary rights are concerned.

If several files are necessary for representing a single scenario, inconsistencies and incomplete data sets are likely to occur. Therefore, we want to use as few files as reasonable to represent a scenario. We will need files of two distinct formats. One format is used to present the frequency assignment scenarios, called scenario-format in what follows. The other format is used to present (partial) frequency assignments for those scenarios, called assignment-format henceforth.