One of the main applications for maps produced by Geo Strategies is for radio telecommunications planning.

The Danube near Greaca

Data sets for radio planning include -

• Digital terrain models (DTMs)
• Clutter (land use data)
• Vector data
• Raster data
• Demographic data

Full details of our terrain models can be found elsewhere and are widely used by many of the international cellular radio companies, for broadcast TV, fm radio, trunk microwave, and wireless local loop planning.

Clutter data enables planners to refine their propagation models, taking account of differential attenuation characteristics that may impinge upon the Fresnel zone.  Normally, we supply six classes of clutter, but this can be changed on request:

• Urban
• Suburban
• Vegetation
• Open water (lakes and large rivers)
• Swamp
• Open land

Vector data required for radio planning is highly dependent on the end application.  For cellular radio applications - one of the larger market areas for these data sets - we supply six layers (or feature codes) as follows:

• Primary roads
• Secondary roads
• Major rivers
• Railways
• Borders
• Coastline

Some users like to have a raster backdrop for planning applications.  We can supply black & white (binary or grey-scale), or colour raster maps.  These can be geo-corrected and fully edge matched to create a seamless raster data set.  "Seamless" is a relative word in this context, as errors in the original cartography are often apparent.  Such errors are removed when creating the vector data sets (above), so there can be an apparent mismatch between the vector data and the raster backdrop along the original sheet boundaries.

Demographic data is particularly valuable for e.g. cellular radio at the tendering stage.  We observe that those clients that include "penetration" information at the tendering stage have a higher success rate than those that do not include this valuable additional information.  However, the creation of such data sets usually requires close co-operation with the clients staff, as they are usually in a better position to obtain the source information than we are (because they have an "in-country" presence).

At any one time we usually have over 20 staff members devoted exclusively to the production of terrain models.  In addition, there are at least 10-to-15 people creating clutter, vector, raster and demographic data sets for telecommunications applications.  For this reason, we are able to react quickly to the largest demands.

In addition, it is our standard practice to deliver data via FTP which ensures the best possible reaction times to urgent requests.

We can also offer a radio planning service using Laser-Scans telecommunications planning software.  This is based on the Longley-Rice model and is widely used by a number of major organisations involved with cellular radio, broadcasting and similar.

We have assisted a number of companies at the planning stage to develop GIS applications for penetration analysis, including buffer-zone calculations along major highways and similar.

This often provides valuable additional resource during the highly critical planning and tendering stages for new projects.

Our data warehouse expands every month.  It is hard to keep up with progress so please take a look at the countries for which we have data coverage under Data Availability.

For further information, please contact Geo Strategies at:
	Geo Strategies Ltd			Geo Strategies SA
	St John's Innovation Centre			Str G-ral V. Milea, 10A
	Cowley Road			Sibiu 550331
	Cambridge  CB4 0WS			Romania
	United Kingdom
	Tel:	+44 (0)1223 205080		Tel:	+40 (0)269 210832
	Fax:	+44 (0)1223 205081		Fax:	+40 (0)269 211165
	Email:	maps@geo-strategies.com		Email:	maps@geo.strategies.ro