Simulation study of a fixed wireless access system

This paper describes a fixed wireless local loop (FWLL) system designed to provide data and voice services to fixed users. The FWLL system uses electronically steerable base-station (BS) antennas that generate multiple narrow beams which hop around when communicating with terminals. The multiple access is provided by TDMA and the up/downlinks operate in a frequency division duplex (FDD) mode. The same frequency band is reused in all the cells. With the help of simulations we evaluate the system's capacity which, in this context, is the number of serviceable terminals per cell for a given percentage of terminals that exceed a preset signal to interference ratio (SIR). We also study the effect of various antenna parameters on the system's capacity. We show an improvement in capacity if a terminal has the ability to communicate with the BS to which it has the least path-loss instead of being required to always communicate with the BS located geographically closest.