LTE and HSPA for fixed wireless broadband: Datarates, coverage, and capacity in an Indian rural scenario

Fixed wireless systems are candidate solutions to connect billions of users not yet connected to the Internet. In this paper the capabilities of HSPA and LTE fixed wireless systems in terms of coverage, datarates, and capacity are discussed and evaluated. Results indicate that in an Indian rural scenario with an inter-site distance of 40km, monthly data volumes of 200MB per user together with a cell-edge datarate of 5Mbps are supported by HSPA on 10MHz (downlink, 1×2). For LTE monthly volumes of 430MB per user are reached in both downlink and uplink, together with cell-edge datarates of 5Mbps in downlink and 2Mbps in uplink. A key enabler is the use of directional rooftop terminal antennas.