Characterisation of the directional wideband radio channel in urban and suburban areas

Directional wideband channel measurements in urban and suburban areas have been performed using a channel sounder and an eight element linear array. A statistical analysis of the results has been performed. It was shown that in urban area a base station antenna at lamppost level lead to more severe azimuth spread (AS) than a base station at rooftop level. Using a phased array smart antenna reduced the azimuth spread by more than 70% in both urban and suburban areas. The smart antenna reduced the delay spread (DS) by 45% in suburban area, but only by 10% in urban area. The correlation between AS and DS was low in most of the measurement routes.