The Capacity Effects of Relays in Residential 5G Networks

Abstract

We examine the effects of introducing relays into millimeter-wave residential access networks. Single-hop networks require professional customer equipment installation on rooftops in order to obtain the necessary line-of-sight properties. An alternative is a two-hop approach with relays that each serve multiple homes. In this case the final access links do not need to be line-of-sight (and so we can utilize customer-installed equipment). We evaluate multiple configurations and show that the rate distribution with relays can be close to the macro-only rate distribution, even in the case that the single-hop macro-only scenario is line-of-sight.