Cell site serves a population of 10,000.......

Judging by the map, you can use 10,000 people (not subscribers but
population) as a gauge for a tower/site. Try it, it works pretty well,
Ive done it for about 20 cities and I've come within 10%-20% of their
population each time.....

Theory being, there are 20 million PCS subscribers in the US, Us
population is about 285,000,000. If we assume a 60% cellular
penetration rate, thats 171,000,000 total cell users in the usa, and
approximately 12% (20/285) have a sprint phone. 12% of 6,000 (60% pen.
on a 10,000 town) is 720 PCS subscribers, on average in town with a
population of 10,000. One CDMA PCS tower with one carrier frequency,
sectorized, and assuming mostly 1xrtt phones, can handle about 40-50
calls per sector, or 120-150 total, thats about 16% of the subscriber
base being able to use the system simultaenously. Typically this is
more than enough capacity for the town, additional carrier frequencies
can be added to satisfy further needs such as peak demand times when
the simultaneous number of users could go higher, 25% even.... When
we get to 50% plus, thats when we have problems, like 9/11

This rule expands in a multi site environment and it remains linear.
In NYC, the population fluctuates daily due to all the commuters. At
night, after 6, there should be a TON of excess capacity (prob in
additional carrier frequencies) as the networks are built to satisfy
daily requirements.
Does this all sound reasonable, I know I am not perfect on the math,
but it is in the ballpark

---

› See More: Cell site serves a population of 10,000.......

Your exercise here doesn't take into account a wide variety of issues that
would effect your population figures ---- such as (very?) young children
(ages 0 to 6 or maybe 9) / older folks (a large population segment), armed
forces stationed outside the country, the incarcerated, the infirmed ----
etc.

You have to figure, somehow, the pool of "possible" customers and not the
total population at large to really start calculating these sorts of things.

--tr


"Craig" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Judging by the map, you can use 10,000 people (not subscribers but
> population) as a gauge for a tower/site. Try it, it works pretty well,
> Ive done it for about 20 cities and I've come within 10%-20% of their
> population each time.....
>
> Theory being, there are 20 million PCS subscribers in the US, Us
> population is about 285,000,000. If we assume a 60% cellular
> penetration rate, thats 171,000,000 total cell users in the usa, and
> approximately 12% (20/285) have a sprint phone. 12% of 6,000 (60% pen.
> on a 10,000 town) is 720 PCS subscribers, on average in town with a
> population of 10,000. One CDMA PCS tower with one carrier frequency,
> sectorized, and assuming mostly 1xrtt phones, can handle about 40-50
> calls per sector, or 120-150 total, thats about 16% of the subscriber
> base being able to use the system simultaenously. Typically this is
> more than enough capacity for the town, additional carrier frequencies
> can be added to satisfy further needs such as peak demand times when
> the simultaneous number of users could go higher, 25% even.... When
> we get to 50% plus, thats when we have problems, like 9/11
>
> This rule expands in a multi site environment and it remains linear.
> In NYC, the population fluctuates daily due to all the commuters. At
> night, after 6, there should be a TON of excess capacity (prob in
> additional carrier frequencies) as the networks are built to satisfy
> daily requirements.
> Does this all sound reasonable, I know I am not perfect on the math,
> but it is in the ballpark

I believe my exercise does take this into account. That's the 60%
penetration rate.. I am not looking at the total population at large,
but maybe my pop numbers are high... What do you think a good
estimate of the number of cell phone subscribers in the US is, it has
to be at least 110,000,000 or 40%, probably closer to 50% thats a an
undisputable fact. Verizon has 30 mil, Sprint, 20, AT&T 20 plus,
Cingular 20 plus, NExtel 10 plus, ALltell and all the other guys, has
to be another 10 at least, even if we are talking 120 million cell
subscribers, my model isnt that far off.

See thread

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=pe...ast.com&rnum=3

THis person says penetration rate is 50%. So even if we assumed 135
million, the model isnt far off.

"tom ronson" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> Your exercise here doesn't take into account a wide variety of issues that
> would effect your population figures ---- such as (very?) young children
> (ages 0 to 6 or maybe 9) / older folks (a large population segment), armed
> forces stationed outside the country, the incarcerated, the infirmed ----
> etc.
>
> You have to figure, somehow, the pool of "possible" customers and not the
> total population at large to really start calculating these sorts of things.
>
> --tr
>
>
> "Craig" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > Judging by the map, you can use 10,000 people (not subscribers but
> > population) as a gauge for a tower/site. Try it, it works pretty well,
> > Ive done it for about 20 cities and I've come within 10%-20% of their
> > population each time.....
> >
> > Theory being, there are 20 million PCS subscribers in the US, Us
> > population is about 285,000,000. If we assume a 60% cellular
> > penetration rate, thats 171,000,000 total cell users in the usa, and
> > approximately 12% (20/285) have a sprint phone. 12% of 6,000 (60% pen.
> > on a 10,000 town) is 720 PCS subscribers, on average in town with a
> > population of 10,000. One CDMA PCS tower with one carrier frequency,
> > sectorized, and assuming mostly 1xrtt phones, can handle about 40-50
> > calls per sector, or 120-150 total, thats about 16% of the subscriber
> > base being able to use the system simultaenously. Typically this is
> > more than enough capacity for the town, additional carrier frequencies
> > can be added to satisfy further needs such as peak demand times when
> > the simultaneous number of users could go higher, 25% even.... When
> > we get to 50% plus, thats when we have problems, like 9/11
> >
> > This rule expands in a multi site environment and it remains linear.
> > In NYC, the population fluctuates daily due to all the commuters. At
> > night, after 6, there should be a TON of excess capacity (prob in
> > additional carrier frequencies) as the networks are built to satisfy
> > daily requirements.
> > Does this all sound reasonable, I know I am not perfect on the math,
> > but it is in the ballpark