Oct 10, 2025
Learn how to use PopEx to balance telecom service areas by population size, ensuring equitable coverage and efficient tower load distribution.
Overview
Balancing telecom service areas ensures that each tower or hub serves roughly similar population sizes. Using Population Explorer (PopEx), planners can compare population totals across tower buffers or isochrone polygons, identify overloaded zones, and redistribute coverage to achieve fairer service delivery.
This workflow combines PopEx’s population metrics with folder-level aggregation tools. By grouping towers into folders, you can measure total and per-area populations, helping operations teams align network capacity with demand.
Why This Matters
Uneven tower loads lead to congestion, dropped calls, and inefficient investment. Balancing coverage areas by population supports quality-of-service (QoS) targets, revenue optimization, and equitable connectivity. PopEx provides a fast, map-based way to visualize and quantify those differences without needing GIS expertise.
Step-by-Step: Balancing Populations Across Service Areas
Import tower locations via File → Import → Markers (CSV or XLSX), ensuring each point has Name, Latitude, and Longitude.
For each tower, create a buffer or isochrone polygon using New → Create Item → Buffered Point or New → Create Item → Isochrone.
Group related towers in a folder (e.g., “Northern Region”).
Open the folder’s menu and set Aggregation → Non-overlapping Children to remove overlapping areas and ensure accurate totals.
Open each folder’s summary panel to view Population Total, Density, and Income metrics. Compare across folders to find imbalances.
Adjust service boundaries by editing polygons or reassigning towers to neighboring folders until populations are approximately equal.
Export results using Export → Excel for reporting or network planning dashboards.
Best Practices
Keep folder hierarchies aligned with operational zones (districts, regions, maintenance zones).
Use consistent polygon types (buffers vs isochrones) when comparing towers.
Enable Non-overlapping Children to avoid duplicated counts.
Review Drawing Isochrones for Telecom Planning to refine coverage shapes.
Example Applications
Use Case | Goal | PopEx Tool |
|---|---|---|
Balance network load | Equal population per tower | Folder Aggregation |
Regional service equity | Compare rural vs urban coverage | Population Summary |
Capacity forecasting | Align coverage with demand growth | Population and Density Metrics |
Public reporting | Show service distribution by population | Excel Export |
Verification
Use exported Excel sheets to compare population totals between folders. Balanced service areas should show similar totals within ±10 %. When results differ greatly, check for overlaps or missing polygons. Verify that all towers belong to the correct folder and that Aggregation is set correctly.
