5G Fixed Wireless Access
Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) is one of the early planned use cases for 5G deployment, offering a new wireless alternative for providing broadband to homes and businesses. Because this requires very high bandwidth, many solutions for FWA consider use of new millimeter wave bands. This poses challenges for coverage, including increased path loss, weaker penetration through walls into the interiors of structures, and greater effects from shadowing of structures and trees on the outdoor propagation.
Coverage in neighborhood is significantly affected by shadowing from trees and houses
Wireless InSite provides a number of features and capabilities that are critical for understanding the nature of propagation and coverage for these scenarios. Whether determining coverage throughout a neighborhood or identifying locations where interior or exterior consumer premises equipment (CPE) can be placed to achieve effective throughput, Wireless InSite’s accurate ray-tracing predictions can provide valuable insight into this new use case to ensure products are designed and deployed in a way that can be successful in the field.
Evaluation of connectivity to three alternative CPE configurations
Simulating MIMO in Suburban Neighborhoods
Wireless InSite’s MIMO capability makes it possible to predict accurate path data between each transmitting and receiving element with precision, revealing critical channel characteristics for FWA scenarios. New beamforming and spatial multiplexing features allow a user to compare and contrast how techniques for increasing the SNR or creating multiple data streams can each be used to improve throughput and performance in a MIMO network.
The figure below shows an example comparing the increase in SNR when beamforming is employed for different CPE locations on houses within a suburban neighborhood. Wireless InSite provides full access to its results, allowing users to evaluate physical propagation paths, or extract data such as the complex channel matrix for further post-processing analysis. See our MIMO Beamforming, Spatial Multiplexing & Diversity page to find out more about Wireless InSite’s MIMO simulation capabilities.
Beamforming increases SINR by 25-30 dB for each CPE configuration