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Cell Radius in LTE PDF
Cell Radius in LTE PDF
A) Preamble Format
LTE FDD supports four preamble formats (as of today, not all of them currently supported
by the equipment manufacturers). The preamble consists of a cyclic prefix (to handle
multipath interference) followed by an 800 μs sequence. In preamble formats 2 and 3, the
sequence is repeated. The total length of the cyclic prefix and the sequence(s) determines
how long it takes to transmit the preamble. Since the actual physical transmission occurs in
units of sub-frames (1 ms), the remaining time determines how far away the UE can be
without overlapping another UE's access attempt (the guard time). For further details, refer
3GPP TS 36.211 - Physical Channels and Modulation.
The operator typically must pick a preamble format to determine the coverage area desired.
In the event of remote sites deployment, the length of the fiber to the remote cells must be
considered as part of the cell radius (this includes Distributed Antenna Systems -DAS- ).
Since the speed of electromagnetic waves over fiber is only two thirds of the speeds in free
space, the total cell radius reduces to the values shown in the table below.
In the previous part (1 out of 3) we discussed the relationship between the preamble format
and the cell radius. In this delivery, we will discuss how the ZeroCorrelationZoneConfig
parameter affects the cell radius.
In the equation, RTD stands for Round Trip Delay (twice the cell radius). Hence:
For instance, if we assume that ZeroCorrelationZoneConfig is 12, then from the table
above, Ncs = 119. Furthermore, if the delay spread = 6 μsec, then the cell size will be
approximately 15.97km. Note that the smaller the cyclic shift, the smaller cell size.
The delay spread in the equation above should be calculated by the RF engineer after a
drive test is carried out in the areas of interest. The value of the delay spread is typically
different for rural, suburban, urban and dense urban environments.
The third factor that affects the cell radius in LTE is the parameter cell radius. Equipment
manufacturers typical offer a parameter called cellradius, that allows the modification of
the cell radius. The units of this parameter are typically Kilometers.
EXAMPLE:
Let's assume that the preamble format picked (or the only one currently available) is type 0
(which offers a maximum cell radius of approximately 14 km). The possible values of the
parameters PrachconfigurationIndex are, therefore, 0 to 15. A network operator may
decide to classify their cells into rural, suburban, urban and dense urban cells. Furthermore,
the operator may allocate a cell radius to different morphologies, say: Rural = 14 km,
Suburban = 8 km, urban = 5 km and dense urban = 2 km. In this case, the values of the
parameters associated with the cell radius could be:
Notes: