5 years ago, when I activated 3G 64qam for ~ 1000cells.
64qam has 1.5 times throughput than 16qam.
I expected it can improve throughput much but actually the group throughput just increased 1-2%.
Later I see that ratio of 64qam scheduling just 10%.
How to add 60 neighbors?
In india, minimum ISD is 80 m in very dense area. Still 256 QAM is less. Why?
Reason is huge overlapping. Sometime carrier addition is better option that site addition. Specially in indian networks like this.
Even below site we sw SINR not more than 10.
Tilt may not be the right one, power might not be the right one, antenna location may not be the right one. Improving SINR is a matter of working on all cells. Not just on the cell you want to improve SINR.
You know for 10m x 10m coverage area we keep cells overshooting on 5km x 5km area.
And we don’t downtilt them because there’s no other serving cell for that 10m x 10m coverage area.
Instead we would need a small cell there, not the polluter of over 5km x 5km.
In my opinion we should all work towards deploying small cells and improve SINR and 256QAM usage from 3-5% to over 10%.
But MNOs have no budget for this they are used to tweak parameters and hocus-pocus miracles happen
for Dl 256QAM.
There will be no miracle but it needs huge overlapping reduction.
Exactly.
As per experience, poor SINR despite of having many sites is, poor planing (site location, selection, etc) and poor optimization.
But given an option…carrier addition beneficial than site addition in denser area.
I still think small cells would do better
But indeed small cells needs more budget and takes more time to deploy than adding a new layer.
Because it takes city hall approvals, etc.
Also OPEX (Operational Expenditures) due to renting, power service, etc…
New sites means a monthly budget from MNOs.