Capacity Planning

Capacity planning is the discipline of forecasting traffic demand and ensuring that compute, storage, transport, and radio resources are provisioned to meet it within agreed performance and availability targets. In mobile networks it spans radio (sites and spectrum), transport (backhaul and fronthaul), and core (signalling and user plane), and is increasingly automated with ML.

Categories: Radio Access NetworkCore NetworkSignaling

Capacity Planning in context

The radio access network is the layer where mobile devices attach to the operator's infrastructure. Attacks in this layer include IMSI catching, rogue base stations, downgrade attacks and jamming, and defenses hinge on mutual authentication, integrity-protected signaling and Open RAN supply-chain hygiene.

The mobile core is where subscriber sessions, mobility and policy live. In 4G it is the EPC (MME, HSS, S/PGW); in 5G it is the Service-Based Architecture with AMF, SMF, UPF, AUSF, UDM and the NRF. Core exposure is the difference between a single-subscriber leak and a fleet-wide breach.

To place Capacity Planning in the wider telecom-security picture, review User Plane Security, Base Station (BS), CAPEX, Interconnection, Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) and Mobile Network.

Related terms

Related topic hubs

  • SS7 Security SS7/MAP/CAP/SCCP attacks and defenses across 2G/3G interconnect.
  • Signaling Firewall Unified SS7/Diameter/GTP/SMS signaling firewall framework.

More from the TelcoSec Glossary

Browse the full TelcoSec Glossary, the Ultimate Guide to Mobile Network Security, or the P1 Arsenal of telecom-security tools.