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WiMAX paves the way for wireless DSL to play a significant role in the broadband wireless access market, especially for rural areas with low population density. Conventional cellular planning methods can be used for point-to-multipoint network design. As an alternative, the Fractional Frequency Reuse (FFR) planning strategy has been recently proposed for cellular systems based on the OFDMA/OFDM radio interface (e.g., WiMAX). In this article we analyze the FFR scheme in rural areas evaluating the increase of the overall system capacity. FFR performances are reported in terms of the average number of bits that can be transmitted per symbol in the area. Finally, comparisons with classical frequency reuse planning are analyzed taking into consideration rural environment characteristics. We show that the FFR scheme can provide extra capacity, slightly penalizing the users at the cell edge.

It is shown that Enhanced UMTS will be an affordable solution for providing the required network quality and to reduce infrastructure investments in offices scenarios. System capacity results are obtained by using a system level simulator which considers traffic characterisation parameters and services usage in detail, among other. Results for the most profitable cell radius are obtained via an optimisation procedure based in economic aspects. A higher number of pico cells (with a smaller radius, around 30-32 m) can be installed in the future, when costs of deploying and maintaining the network decreases, allowing for supporting higher system capacity, and reducing prices. Our approach is based in a detailed services analysis, which represents a worst case situation relatively to the total services approach, because the later does not discriminate results for the different traffic classes. The impact of call blocking, handover failure, end-to-end delay, and delay variation are taken into account. © 2006 IEEE. Conference code: 72218 Cited By :2