Potential for mobile coverage improvement in urban environments

The migration of UMTS carrier frequencies to the 2 GHz band has stimulated interest in radio coverage in urban environments. This paper examines the problem of poor signal quality close to buildings. It uses simulation based on approximate propagation models in a "generic" urban environment to estimate the relationship between size of coverage black spots and distance from the serving base station. Consideration is also given to the possibility of using channels allocated to in-building picocells as a means of mitigating against coverage black spots.