Shadow fading: When common assumptions do not hold

We report, based on extensive propagation measurements, cases where typical assumptions regarding shadow fading do not hold. These assumptions include universally assumed Gaussian marginals and exponentially decaying uniform spatial correlation structure. Our results are based on measurement campaigns conducted on three different environments, namely in urban, suburban and forest areas. We discuss precisely when these common assumptions do not hold and how significant care should be used especially in simulation work based on commonly used shadow fading models.