Improving the quality of service in dead spots areas of UMTS networks

Providing 100% reliable radio coverage within their service area is a very challenging task for mobile operators. This is especially true in areas that experience abnormal attenuation to radio frequency (RF), due to natural features or man-made structures. The signal quality in these areas needs to be improved by enhancing the weak RF signal. Building a new base station (BS) is the best solution. However, in certain areas the establishment of new BSs is impractical and/or uneconomical. Therefore the use of broadband repeaters to improve the RF quality is a good alternative as well as being cost effective. The paper investigates the quality of service (QoS) in the dead spot areas of UMTS networks based on the 3GPP standard.