COVERAGE PLANNING OF BROADBAND ACCESS NETWORKS OPERATING AT FREQUENCIES ABOVE 20 GHZ

by MACHADO, GUSTAVO PINHEIRO

Broadband wireless access systems in frequencies above 20 GHz can provide a simple and effective solution for high speed, video, audio and multimedia service providers being an excellent alternative to cable systems for the lastmile. At these frequencies bands, the broadband radio access system uses point to multipoint link in the downlink direction and point to point in the uplink. The configuration is similar to those of cellular networks. However, at these high frequencies the links are line-of-sight and the main problem is rain attenuation, that seriously affects the received signal level reducingcoverage and system performance. In this work a computational tool is developed with the purpose of simula-ting coverage prediction, capacity and system availability calculations using models for rain attenuation prediction developed by ITU-R and CETUC. Also considered is the effect of differential attenuation, what allows a complete treatment of rain effects in point to multipoint links and the calculation of the total degradation in the signal to interference ratio.