Ultra-Broadband, Hybrid High-Low Band Wireless Access

This paper addresses the design of a novel ultra-broadband wireless access system, as an alternative to fiber to the home (FTTH) deployments. Hence, the system must be capable of delivering very high data rates to indoor users without the need of deploying fiber to homes. We show that a hybrid wireless access system with outdoor deployed cell sites operating jointly across high and low spectrum bands enables ultra-broadband wireless connectivity to indoor users with indoor antennas close to the windows. On the other hand, a system operating in the 28 GHz band alone does not achieve the target performance. We have created a representative suburban neighborhood via the Bell Labs WiSE (Wireless System Engineering) 3D ray tracing tool and explored multiple system design options to provide such high data rates to homes. Via 3D ray tracing environment simulations, we demonstrate that sustained throughputs on the order of 100Mbps at the cell edge may be delivered to multiple homes within the representative suburban neighborhood. Further, we studied the sensitivity to parameters such as density of sites, number of active beams, Effective Isotropic Radiated Power (EIRP) and interference characteristics.