Analysis and Estimation of Line-of-Sight Coverage in Urban Areas for Fixed Broadband Wireless Access Systems

Line-of-sight (LOS) is often required in fixed broadband wireless access systems like LMDS or WiMAX. However, the percentage of customers in a cell which can be reached via a LOS link depends strongly on the environment and other scenario parameters. In this article the influence of these parameters on an introduced average LOS coverage ratio is analyzed using ray tracing calculations and approximately described by simple expressions. This makes it possible to rate, to compare and even to transfer coverage results to other scenarios, which allows a rough but easy estimation of the average LOS coverage for an arbitrary scenario based on a reference scenario.