Challenges of predicting coverage and interference in a regulatory context

In order to release spectrum for the new users, the UK communication regulator Ofcom need to undertake analysis to quantify the potential interference into existing users in adjacent bands. In this paper, the case of co-existence of Wi-Fi in 2.4 GHz with future LTE service in 2.3 GHz was studied. A range of propagation models which used to predict the mobile coverage were compared, especially between the empirical models (e.g. Okumura-Hata, ITU-R P.1812) and the ray tracing model. It is found that the Hata model over-predicts interference at short distances from the base station. Therefore a 10dB correction factor should be applied to the suburban Hata results for the nationwide co-existence analysis.