Abstract
Planning and optimization of 3G networks is more than just frequency allocation and coverage planning, due to the nature of WCDMA coding. It usually involves solution of an NP-Hard problem. In this paper we propose an effective method for optimizing the Common Pilot Channel (CPICH) transmit power, along with maximizing the number of served users and minimizing the number of cell sites and compare use of two meta-heuristic methods: Taboo Search (TS) and Genetic Algorithm (GA) in planning and optimization of UMTS radio networks.