The French National Centre for Telecommunications Research has been awarded the annual research award by Marcel Roulet for the work done since 1982 on Parcel, the software used to engineer France’s mobile telecommunications network. Parcel simulates the territory in which the mobile telephones will be used, using a geographic database and a library of models of VHF and UHF radiowave propagation. The software enables the user to simulate, interactively, changes to the network, including new stations, changes in power and realignment of antennae, to see the results on-screen or on a print-out and to analyse anomalies such as holes in coverage.
