A method is disclosed for using cell load coupling (CLC) to manage a radio communications network (RCN), comprising cells and radio network nodes associated with the cells. The method comprises determining a CLC characteristic between a first and second of the cells. The determining is based on a cell load contribution that is dependent on a measure of: a signal received by a receiving node of the first cell from a transmitting node of the first cell, a signal received by the receiving node from a transmitting node of the second cell, and traffic between the receiving node and the transmitting node of the first cell. One or more network management functions may be performed on the RCN based on the determined CLC characteristics. The method and/or the functions may be implemented by a computer program, a wireless communications device or a network node.