User modeling enables in the computation of the traffic density in a cellular network, which can be used to optimize the placement of base stations and radio network controllers as well as to analyze the performance of resource management algorithms towards meeting the final goal: the calculation and maximization of network capacity and throughput for different data rate services. An analytical model is presented for approximating the user distributions in multi-cell third generation wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) networks using 2-dimensional Gaussian distributions by determining the means and the standard deviations of the distributions for every cell. This model allows for the calculation of the inter-cell interference and the reverse-link capacity of the network. An analytical model for optimizing capacity in multi-cell WCDMA networks is presented. Capacity is optimized for different spreading factors and for perfect and imperfect power control. Numerical results show that the SIR threshold for the received signals is decreased by 0.5 to 1.5 dB due to the imperfect power control. The results also show that the determined parameters of the 2-dimensional Gaussian model match well with traditional methods for modeling user distribution. A call admission control algorithm is designed that maximizes the throughput in multi-cell WCDMA networks. Numerical results are presented for different spreading factors and for several mobility scenarios. Our methods of optimizing capacity and throughput are computationally efficient, accurate, and can be implemented in large WCDMA networks.