Using dedicated in-building systems to improve HSDPA indoor coverage and capacity

In WCDMA systems, in particular with the introduction of high-speed multimedia services, the demand for good indoor coverage will become important. Overlaying macro cells can provide a sufficient level of general indoor coverage for most of the cases. However, in order to be able to provide WCDMA indoor coverage and capacity within traffic hot spots, such as airports, shopping malls and large office buildings, the deployment of dedicated in-building systems may be required. In this paper, the gain of deploying dedicated in-building systems in terms of HSDPA indoor coverage and capacity is studied; first, with a simple analytical reasoning and after that, with advanced system simulations. The results show that the HSDPA performance can be improved considerably within the indoor hotspot area by deploying a dedicated in-building system. The results also demonstrate how a dedicated in-building system can off-load the overlaying macro cell, and as a result of that, improve the grade of service considerably for the co-existing non-HSDPA users.