Real measurement study for rain rate and rain attenuation conducted over 26 GHz microwave 5G link system in Malaysia

In this paper, real measurements were conducted to investigate the impact of rain on the propagation of millimeter waves at 26 GHz. The measurements were accomplished using a microwave fifth generation radio link system with 1.3 km path length implemented at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Johor Bahru, Malaysia. The implemented system consisted of Ericsson CN500 mini E-link, radio unit, rain gauge, and data logger. The measurements were attained and logged daily for a continuous year, with 1-min time intervals. Next, the MATLAB software was used to process and analyze the annual rain rate and rain attenuation, including for the worst month. From the analyzed results, it was found that at 0.01% percentage of time, the rain rate was 120 mm/hr; while the specific rain attenuation was 26.2 dB/km and the total rain attenuation over 1.3 km was 34 dB. In addition, the statistics acquired from the measurements for the worst month were lower than what was predicted by the international telecommunication union (ITU) model; around 51% and 34% for the rain rate and rain attenuation, respectively. The average percentage of error calculated between the measurements and predicted results for the rain rate and rain attenuation were 143% and 159%, respectively. Thus, it can be concluded that the statistics for the worst month in Malaysia is lower than what was predicted by the ITU model

Performance analysis of mobile broadband networks with 5g trends and beyond: urban areas scope in Malaysia

The performance of Mobile Broadband (MBB) services of Fourth Generation (4G) and Third Generation (3G) mobile networks over urban morphology is studied in Malaysia based on experimental measurements of drive test data. The aim of this study is to provide a roadmap for service providers to establish a realistic plan for future Fifth Generation (5G) networks. This work is a continuation of our previous work for the scope of rural areas in Malaysia. The MBB measurement data have been gathered through drive tests conducted in the urban areas of four states throughout Malaysia (namely, Klang Valley/Selangor, Johor, Sarawak and Sabah) to characterise and analyse MBB performances. The gathered data are from the cities, highways and federal roads of the chosen states, and encompasses three main Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). Data has been collected in a time span of 2 months, from January to February, using the Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone handsets. Four MBB Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are considered in this study (coverage, latency, satisfaction and speed) for two MBB services (web browsing and video streaming). The measurement data for characterising the performance of each MBB service has been collected using a dedicated smartphone handset. YouTube videos with 720p and 1080p resolutions have been sequentially streamed to assess the performance of MBB video-streaming services. Three distinct websites (Google, Instagram and mStar) have been accessed to evaluate the performance of MBB web-browsing services. The experimental methodology of this study integrates several diversified elements including four different urban states, four distinct KPIs, three main MNOs, two MBB services and two radio networks (4G and 3G), which are both accessible by the smartphones when available to mimic real-world scenarios. The results of this study reveal that the performance of 4G radio networks is generally superior to that of 3G. For instance, 4G networks achieved a vMOS score of more than 3 for both MBB video-streaming and web-browsing services, while 3G networks scored less than 3 across all four study areas. The analysed experimental results confirmed that compared to 3G networks, 4G technology presents an enhancement factor of up to 1.6 and 4.2 in download speed when streaming a video and browsing a web page, respectively. The study outcomes can contribute to the efficient planning of non-standalone (NSA) 5G networks in Malaysia where 5G networks will be aided by existing 4G infrastructures. Analysing the 4G coverage performance is the first step towards deciding the deployment rate of NSA 5G in Malaysia

Performance analysis of mobile broadband networks with 5g trends and beyond: rural areas scope in Malaysia

This paper presents a multidimensional performance analysis of existing Mobile Broadband (MBB), Third Generation (3G) and Fourth Generation (4G) networks, of rural morphology in Malaysia. The MBB performance analysis is carried out based on measurement data obtained through Drive Tests (DT) conducted in rural areas located in three Malaysian states: Johor, Sarawak, and Sabah. The measurement data pertains to the performance of three national Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) in rural areas: Maxis, Celcom, and DiGi. The MBB performance measurement data was collected between January and February using modified Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone handsets. The measurement data of the 3G and 4G MBB networks are associated with four performance metrics (coverage, latency, satisfaction, and speed) for two MBB services: web browsing and video streaming. During the measurements, each smartphone collected the performance data of only one MBB service. Several classifications were identified to comprehensively monitor the performance of the two MBB services. For the data measurement of the MBB video streaming service, the same YouTube video was alternately played by the same smartphone, but with two different resolutions: 720p (low) and 1080p (high). For the data measurement of the MBB video streaming service, three different webpages (i.e., google, Instagram, and mstar) are sequentially browsed in a loop using another smartphone. This research work is designed to mimic real scenarios where the smartphone in use is not exclusively locked to a single technology while streaming a video or browsing a website. This allows the identification of the coverage for 2G, 3G, and/or 4G technologies within the tested areas. Due to the small amounts of 2G data, we omitted the analysis of 2G technology in the present study. The MBB performance analysis shows that, on average, the 4G network performed much better than the 3G network for all three MNOs throughout all measurement areas considered in this research. For instance, the 4G technology achieved a minimum of 42.4 ms on the web ping average RTT latency, while the 3G only achieved a minimum of 69.9 ms. For the average E2E RTT ping server latency, 4G achieved as low as 33.27 ms, while 3G obtained a minimum of 122.98 ms. The vMOS scores for 4G technology for both web browsing and video streaming services are larger than 3, while the 3G technology had a score of less than 3. The 4G technology can provide an improvement up to a factor of 4.2 and 1.6 in the download speed when browsing a web and streaming a video, respectively, in comparison to the 3G technology. These observations were found to be consistent across all mobile operators. This is unsurprising because we would expect consumers to experience a noticeable improvement when using a mobile broadband service over a 4G network as compared to a 3G network. The presented results provide a general direction for efficiently planning the Fifth Generation (5G) network in rural areas