Downlink capacity and coverage trade-offs in WCDMA with advanced antenna systems

Advanced antenna technologies are identified as one of the key techniques to improve the capacity and coverage of third generation WCDMA (FDD) systems. Advanced antennas can solve the capacity limitations in certain urban cells. Furthermore, they can also extend the coverage of large rural cells. The goal of this contribution is to highlight the downlink capacity and coverage gains and show the potential in capacity and coverage trade-offs for a WCDMA downlink provided by the use of advanced antenna systems installed at WCDMA base stations.