Impact of Electrical and Mechanical Antenna Tilt on LTE Downlink System Performance

Antenna tilt is one of the most important performance tuning parameters of a cellular network, since it has a strong impact on the inter-site interference level in the system. In this paper, we present an analysis of the impact of antenna tilt on LTE coverage and capacity. Using system simulations, we study how the distribution between two types of tilt, electrical and mechanical, affects path gain and cell edge, peak, and average throughput in a macro-cellular scenario. While the total tilt has a strong impact on both capacity and coverage, we find that the type of tilt has distinct impact only on capacity.