The impact of a two-path radio environment on bit error rate in UMTS networks

In wireless communication systems, the receiver receives signals from one source or multiple sources. The latter is known as a quasi-synchronous transmission. The same signal from multiple sources with different propagation delays causes dispersion of transmission pulses, thus increasing the delay spread of the transmission. In analogue systems, this results in ghosting effects, whereas digital environments suffer from severe intersymbol interference (ISI). The effects of ISI on digital communication systems are critical, as it degrades the system performance, especially in the absence of equalization. This paper analyses the effects on third generation (3G) WCDMA-FDD mobile networks of the presence of multiple broadband repeaters in the system.