Air interface capacity for GPRS/EDGE over GSM traffic load

The purpose of the paper is to study available air interface capacity for the packet based GPRS/EDGE service when circuit switched GSM speech or data traffic is already loading the air interface in the cellular radio network. The target of the paper is to create planning criteria for the capacity of the combined GSM+GPRS/EDGE air interface. The analysis of the air interface capacity for circuit switched and packet services is based on the comparison of the theory and measurements of the cell load in a live GSM network. The theoretical and experimental results show that there is still reasonably high capacity available for a packet service in a circuit-switched loaded air interface before new transceiver extensions at the base stations are needed. Finally the results give a basis to define planning criteria for different quality targets in combined GSM+GPRS/EDGE networks.