Rural / Suburban Communication, 2.5G

The network planning of a rural/suburban scenario with 2.5G is investigated.

Geometry

The geometry is described by topography (elevation) and clutter. The clutter map describes areas that are, for example, urban, open, or water. The Database tree in the Tree view enables you to view the two displays, click either Topography or Clutter/Morpho.

Sites and Antennas

There are four antenna sites in this scenario. Each site has three sector antennas at a height of 25 m.
Tip: Click Project > Edit Project Parameter and click the Sites tab to view the sites, antenna patterns, and carrier frequencies.
Figure 1. Rural suburban area topography and transmitter sites.


Air Interface

The air interface is defined by a GSM wireless standard (.wst) file.
Tip: Click Project > Edit Project Parameter and click the Air Interface tab.

Computational Method

In this case, the method that is used is the empirical two-ray model (ETR) (with breakpoint: dual slope model) as it takes multipath propagation into account. When used by itself, it might leave pixels in shadow areas blank. To estimate the signal in shadow areas, select Consideration of Knife-Edge Diffraction in Vertical Plane.

Results

Propagation results in this project include power coverage for each transmitting antenna of all four sites. This is the power that an isotropic receiver at a given position would receive from the transmitter.

Network results in this project include the following for every location:
  • best server
  • maximum data rate
  • signal to noise and interference ratio (SNIR)
Due to a combination of topography, clutter, antenna positions, carrier selections, site 2, and site 3, turn out to be less effective than site 1 and site 4.
Figure 2. Maximum data rates for the rural, suburban network results.