Capacity and Coverage Analysis of 5G NR Mobile Network Deployment for Indonesia's Urban Market

Abstract

The cellular technology development is evolving rapidly, along with its explosive increase in data traffic, leading to the development of the following technology, namely 5G. In order to predict the readiness of the 5G deployment in Indonesia, careful planning is needed. This research aims to deploy a 5G New Radio (NR) network in Indonesia with a frequency spectrum of 3.5 GHz due to its widely used globally, wherein this research selects an urban area, Bandung city, with an area of 167.31 km2 from the year 2021 to 2026. Bandung city is selected because it is one of the big cities implementing 5G based on the KOMINFO strategic plan. This research uses a planning approach based on capacity and coverage. The capacity planning approach determines the users' projection, demand traffic, and data rates for determining the number of gNodeB. While the coverage planning uses uplink and downlink scenarios from Outdoor to Outdoor (O2O) with Line of Sight (LOS) conditions based on the 3GPP 38.901 UMa (Urban Macro) propagation model. This research shows that the 5G NR network deployment in Bandung city based on capacity requires 130 gNodeB for uplink and 69 gNodeB for downlink. While for coverage, 61 gNodeB is needed for uplink and 97 gNodeB for downlink. Based on the results, the selected gNodeB number needed in Bandung city is 130 gNodeB. It also requires a traffic demand of 2.18 Gbps/km2, with a maximum data rate for the uplink of 1.875 Gbps and a downlink of 3.506 Gbps.