HSDPA Macro-to-Indoor Mobility Measurements Using WCDMA Repeater and Pico Cell

With the advancements in DSP, mobile terminals are becoming smaller and smarter every day. The more the mobile becoming data centric, the more is the number of users from indoors. From radio network planning point of view, these advancements introduced two major demands on mobile communication networks: faster and more spectral efficient networks, and better quality of service in indoors. This thesis studies the implementation of a dedicated indoor system and a WCDMA outdoor-to-indoor analogue repeater for a university building at the cell edge of an outdoor macrocell. The main emphasis is to compare the performance of the two systems in the cell change location when the user enters the indoor from outdoor coverage area. The thesis is divided into two parts. In the literature study part, the fundamental principles of wireless communication and basics of UMTS are resented. The architecture and basic concepts of HSDPA and guidelines to radio network planning are also discussed. In the measurement campaign part, the pico cell and repeater implementations for indoor coverage are studied, with focus on the HS-DSCH cell change region and the results are compared with the macrocell coverage scenario. The results of measurement rounds carried out under loaded scenario and with lower category mobiles than the one used for the study are also discussed. The study indicates that the HS-DSCH cell change introduces a momentary drop in throughput of pico cell scenario while the user movement from outdoor coverage to repeater coverage area is seamless. The study also highlights the importance of proper repeater donor antenna implementation. The effect of disoriented donor antenna on CQI value and hence the throughput of HSDPA systems is explicit from the results. It is shown from the study that the interference through repeaters also affects the region under the macrocell that is close to the repeater antenna. According to the results, dedicated indoor base stations are a good choice for indoors with high capacity requirements while repeater offers better coverage solution at lower cost. The conclusion is in accordance with the previous studies carried out with repeaters and dedicated indoor base stations. /Kir1