Path loss validation for urban micro cell scenarios at 3.5 GHz compared to 1.9 GHz

Abstract

The 3.5 GHz band is a strong candidate for future urban micro cell deployment with base station antennas located below rooftop. Compared to other frequency bands, propagation in the 3.5 GHz band is relatively unexplored for the micro cell deployment. This paper presents a measurement-based analysis of outdoor and outdoor-to-indoor propagation at 3.5 GHz in comparison to the more well-known frequency of 1.9 GHz. A simple two-slope line-of-sight/non-line-of-sight outdoor path loss model is proposed and compared to different existing path loss models. The outdoor path loss is found to be approximately 5 dB higher for 3.5 GHz compared to 1.9 GHz. The outdoor-to-indoor propagation is investigated for two office buildings and different street shops. For the different presented scenarios, penetration loss increases with frequency and is found to be up to 5 dB higher for 3.5 GHz compared with 1.9 GHz. Although some existing models predict the observations with good accuracy, we propose a model based on line-of-sight probability that is simpler and easier to apply.