Courses on "Planning and Design of Mobile Cellular Networks” and “Project Costing and Evaluation Applied to Decision-Making”

Between September 29 and November 22, the Academic Director’s Office for the CITEL/ITU Program ran an eight-week distance learning course, using ITU software, on “Planning and Design of Mobile Cellular Networks.”

This course corresponds to one on the Telecommunication Engineering curriculum and is therefore worth 6 credits.

The courses offered by the University are based on excellence, in terms of knowledge, within a framework of applied ethics and high professional standards.

This course covers the three technological generations of mobile cellular networks.  It explains how the technology was gradually consolidated and the ground laid for a series of transitions as new forms of services were developed.  The course also describes how greater efficiency was achieved in the technological phases that managed to improve quality and how increasingly stringent operating procedures were established.

At the same time, the course allowed for the fact that the recognized technological generations succeeded one another at a pace that varied from one American state to another. The course naturally examined the first generation, which is already disappearing, although it is still operating in some countries in the region.

The course also addressed progress made in making the most of the radio spectrum, one of humanity’s scare goods, in order to establish technical requirements in each cell of a cellular network.  Different forms of modulation were analyzed to see how performance improved as one generation gave way to another.  Special attention was paid to the size of cellular phones and to the increasingly long time needed to recharge batteries.

Another noteworthy development was the changing regulatory environment, from one generation to another.

Finally, as the course progressed, participants learned about the cutting-edge ideas that paved the way for new technologically more advanced developments.

The “Planning and Design of Mobile Cellular Networks” course, which has been translated into English, will be repeated this year (2004), in Spanish and in English, as a distance education course using ITU software.  The contents of the course were described above and will be complemented by references to any further technological developments in this field.

A new course being offered in 2004 is “Project Costing and Evaluation Applied to Decision-Making.”  This course looks at the economic and financial side of projects, which are first developed as technical ideas, but only become feasible after they have passed through an economic and financial “sieve.”  Above all, it can be tailored very easily to communication network planning, such as that addressed in the above-mentioned course on mobile cellular networks.  It, too, is based on curriculum courses and, those passing it will therefore earn 6 credits.  While the course addresses the whole range of economic and financial project evaluation tools, it focuses in particular on a study of the costs associated with telephonic access.  It analyzes the network aspects of services, and support and corporate activities.  Then costing models are made for copper and switching access and other complementary items.  Finally, the course includes exercises on the topics dealt with.

The course programs can be found on the CITEL and ITU web sites.

Luis Peluffo
Academic Director for the CITEL/ITU Program
Faculty of Engineering and Technology
Catholic University of Uruguay
Telephone: 598 2 487 2717 Ext. 339
Fax: 598 2 487 0323
e-mail:  [email protected]