Hierarchical Coverage Optimization of 5G New Radio Non-Standalone in Tourism Corridors
DOI:
10.33395/sinkron.v10i4.16738Keywords:
5G NR NSA, Drive test, Coverage optimization, Small cell, AtollAbstract
A hierarchical coverage-optimization strategy is proposed for 5G New Radio Non-Standalone (NR NSA) networks in hilly tourism corridors with transient, high-mobility users. A drive-test campaign (7,522 measurement points, G-NetTrack Pro) was conducted on the Telkomsel 5G NR NSA network in the Jam Gadang corridor, Bukittinggi, West Sumatra, Indonesia, and benchmarked against three radio-planning scenarios simulated in Atoll. Three interventions were evaluated in order of increasing capital cost: antenna tilt and azimuth tuning, small-cell densification, and the addition of new macro-sites. Drive-test results show 97.55% of RSRP samples in the very-good band (≥ −85 dBm), confirming throughput — not coverage — as the dominant constraint. Against the simulation baseline (77.30% very-good RSRP, 70.55% very-good SINR), antenna tuning alone raises RSRP to 84.50% very-good and reduces the poor-band SINR from 2.03% to 0.06% at zero hardware cost. Small-cell densification achieves the strongest throughput gain (99.00% very-good TPUT-DL), while new macro-site addition achieves the strongest coverage gain (92.20% very-good RSRP, 0.00% poor RSRP). These results substantiate a cost-ordered hierarchical planning sequence transferable to similar tourism heritage corridors in emerging markets.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Afrizal Yuhanef, Muhammad Putra Pamungkas, Amran Paso Salmeno, Fikri Adi Pratama
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