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During the last year's problems with expensive 3G licenses, GPRS delays and dwindling telecom shares you might have asked yourself: How difficult could it be to run a mobile phone network? A mobile phone version of the game SimCity could perhaps help you answer the question.
Together with engineering students Anders Olsson and Johan Königslehner, Ericsson Research's Lin Lab in Linköping has developed SimCell, a computer game based on the classic town planning game SimCity. In this version, the town is already there, but now it needs a mobile phone network. Areas with high rise apartment buildings as well as remote cottages are represented in the game, and they all have to be equipped with the right basestations and masts in order for the player to be successful.
"Our aim is to increase the understanding of mobile phone networks and radio networks in general," says Per Magnusson, senior specialist at Lin Lab.
There are several ways of winning the game, for example you might achieve the best coverage or you might be the player with the highest paying customers through value-added services.
Technically, the game follows the principles of simulators used by Ericsson to plan their networks, but of course the model has been simplified. Even so, Per Magnusson tells Elektroniktidningen that researchers might be able to learn something from the game.
"There are ideas on the games market which could be used to visualise what goes on in our mobile phone systems," he says.
The game, which is not yet a finished product, can be downloaded in a playable version from: www.ericsson.com/rnc/research4.asp
"Our aim is to increase the understanding of mobile phone networks and radio networks in general," says Per Magnusson, senior specialist at Lin Lab.
There are several ways of winning the game, for example you might achieve the best coverage or you might be the player with the highest paying customers through value-added services.
Technically, the game follows the principles of simulators used by Ericsson to plan their networks, but of course the model has been simplified. Even so, Per Magnusson tells Elektroniktidningen that researchers might be able to learn something from the game.
"There are ideas on the games market which could be used to visualise what goes on in our mobile phone systems," he says.
The game, which is not yet a finished product, can be downloaded in a playable version from: www.ericsson.com/rnc/research4.asp
Gittan Cedervall
