Medium- and Large-Scale Characterization of UMTS-Allocated Frequency Division Duplex Channels

A dual-band sounder is used in both trolley and van measurements in the dense urban environment of Manchester city center to characterize the uplink (1920-1980 MHz) and downlink (2110-2170 MHz) frequency-division duplex (FDD) channels allocated to third-generation (3G) mobile radio systems. The data are analyzed with 60- and 5-MHz resolutions, as used for 3G wideband code-division multiple-access systems. Root-mean-square (rms) delay spread and 15-dB widths of mainly temporally averaged delay profile are presented either as cumulative distribution functions (cdfs) for each individual frequency band or as histograms of the difference between uplink and downlink on a local area basis. It was found that the histograms show larger differences between the two bands than the individual cdf and that the differences between the FDD channels are more pronounced on circumferential routes and shadowed locations. Correlations of rms delay spread with excess path loss and distance are on the order of 0.5 and 0.4, respectively.