A Survey on Coverage Enhancement in Cellular Networks: Challenges and Solutions for Future Deployments

Abstract

Seamless and ubiquitous coverage are key factors for future cellular networks. Despite capacity and data rates being the main topics under discussion when envisioning the Fifth Generation (5G) and beyond of mobile communications, network coverage remains one of the major issues since coverage quality highly impacts the system performance and end-user experience. The increasing number of base stations and user terminals is anticipated to negatively impact the network coverage due to increasing interference. Furthermore, the "ubiquitous coverage" use cases, including rural and isolated areas, present a significant challenge for mobile communication technologies. This survey presents an overview of the concept of coverage, highlighting the ways it is studied, measured, and how it impacts the network performance. Additionally, an overlook of the most important key performance indicators influenced by coverage, which may affect the envisioned use cases with respect to throughput, latency, and massive connectivity, are discussed. Moreover, the main existing developments and deployments which are expected to augment the network coverage, in order to meet the requirements of the emerging systems, are presented as well as implementation challenges.

Engineering-Economic Evaluation of Diffractive NLOS Backhaul (e3nb): A Techno-economic Model for 3D Wireless Backhaul Assessment

“…The investment cost (𝐶𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑟 ) for the modeling region (𝑟) is the summation of all cost inputs for the 𝑖th wireless link, as defined in (5):…”

“…One of the cheapest ways to provide internet access is to use wireless technologies, such as 4G cellular. While the access sites themselves can often be viably built, connecting these assets back into the internet can be a more challenging endeavor for providing coverage, particularly in mountainous areas [2], [3]. The connections between the access sites and the operator's core network are generally called transport links or backhaul links [4].…”

Internet of Things, Preliminaries and Foundations

“…These cells collectively afford radio coverage over wider geographic zones, meanwhile, the frequency of a particular cell varies from those of adjacent cells, to assure the quality of service per each cell and evade intervention issues. Hence, IoT devices are able to communicate even they are moving between cells throughout transmission [28,29].…”

Securing Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface-Aided Cell-Free Networks

“…With the rapid development of the smart wireless applications, the demand of the wireless data throughput has been speedily increasing [1]. To satisfy the above requirement, more base stations (BSs) can be deployed to improve the service capacity [2], [3].…”