Outage performance of dual branch diversity techniques in broadband fixed wireless access networks

New physical-mathematical models for the calculation of the outage probability of the maximal ratio combining and selection combining dual branch spatial diversity schemes for broadband fixed wireless access networks operating above 10 GHz are presented. At these frequency bands and considering line-of-sight conditions, rain attenuation is the dominant fading mechanism, which should be taken into account in the radio communications system design. The models are based on bivariate inverse Gaussian (IG) distribution and on the adoption of a spatial correlation coefficient for the convergent terrestrial wireless links. IG distribution has been shown that models accurately the rain attenuation fading for both temperate and tropical climatic regions. The models are validated with numerical results and some useful conclusions are drawn.