A method is provided for planning and optimizing the configuration of a radio access network which comprises base stations and receivers and employs a mobile radio technology that allows and/or enforces use of multi-antenna types at said base stations and receivers. By a ray tracing algorithm which is performed between said transmitter positions and said receiver positions using a 3D clutter height matrix, a scalar metric is determined for each receiver position which directly reflects a capacity gain resulting from applying a multi-antenna type instead of a single antenna at said transmitter and receiver positions. This scalar metric allows in an algorithmically advantageous way to analyze the relative performance of different MIMO antenna types in a potential deployment area and to select and deploy an optimal MIMO antenna type for a particular coverage sector.