Prismo Simulator

Overview

Prismo Simulator is a dynamic network simulator for modern wireless systems running on Windows™ system.

It implements both packet-switch and circuit-switch technologies, and is event-driven unlike most dynamic simulators which are time-sampling driven.

It aims to be simple, efficient and easy to configure.

Prismo Simulator is not a network planning tool. It connects to existing network planning tools such as Atoll™ by Forsk™ and runs dynamic simulations on pre-planned networks to evaluate their performance.

Traditional GSM-type planning tools base their cell planning on propagation models and static frequency allocation. In CDMA-type systems, dynamic power allocation replaces static frequency allocation. Dynamic power allocation requires Monte Carlo type simulations or dynamic simulations to study system performance.

Monte Carlo simulations perform, on a static snapshot of the system, a power convergence loop to determine “average” power allocation when the system reaches equilibrium. However, Monte Carlo simulations cannot simulate dynamic changes in the system, e.g., Service Downgrade, Upgrade, Cancellation and other transient behaviors such as Call Admission Control and Load Control procedures. Quality of Service figures for packet-switch service (e.g., mean or percentile user throughput) cannot be easily measured in Monte Carlo simulations.

Prismo is a simplified dynamic simulator that lets operators analyze the service grade change and the transient behaviors, and compare the performance of different manufacturer equipment.

Usage

Prismo can typically be used for:

• Performance and Quality of Service evaluation: for instance, maps of offered HSDPA throughput, ...
• Network dimensioning and resources optimization: for instance, managing channel elements allocation in the sites
• Comparing various technology choice: for instance, evaluating if HSDPA should be given their own dedicated carrier or sharing with R99
• Comparing various Radio Resource Management algorithms

Features

Prismo’s main features are:

• Seamless integration with cell planning tool Atoll™
  Most of the configuration is done in Atoll™. Prismo results are injected into Atoll™ for visualization and analysis.
• Simple: operational engineers are not overwhelmed with unnecessary technical overhead.
• Coherent: operator-oriented modeling of services and traffic
• Result visualization via global or detailed (sites, cells, users) histograms and maps
• Native support for UMTS WCDMA R99, HSDPA and R99+HSDPA simulations.
• Simplified event-based dynamic simulation model: the simulation is dynamic in time but users are stationary in space.
• Simulate RAN vendors RRM (Radio resource management algorithms such as Call Admission Control and Load Control) : Nokia, Siemens, Ericsson, Nortel...
• Various HSDPA Schedulers: Round Robin, max C/I, proportional fair.
• Easy to extend with new Radio Resource Management (RRM) models or schedulers.
• Fast simulation time allows for interactive use, with visual feedback of the process

Packaging

Prismo Simulator is available in 2 editions:

• Atoll Edition: Fully embeded in Atoll, at the same level than the Atoll native static simulator, this edition require Atoll V2.5
• Standalone Edition: This edition is a standalone windows application, using only text files as input. This edition provide an Atoll Extractor plugin which generate the input files for Atoll V2.3. Connecting this edition to another network planning tool is an easy task.