A multifunctional router IC to be included in the nodes of a wearable body sensor network is described and evaluated. The router targets different application scenarios, especially those including tens of sensors, embedded into textile materials and with high data-rate communication demands. The router IC supports two different functionality sets, one for sensor nodes and another for the base node, both based on the same circuit module. The nodes are connected to each other by means of woven thick conductive yarns forming a mesh topology with the base node at the center. From the standpoint of the network, each sensor node is a four port router capable of handling packets from destination nodes to the base node, with sufficient redundant paths. The adopted hybrid circuit and packet switching scheme significantly improve network performance in terms of end-to-end delay, throughput and power consumption. The IC also implements a highly precise, sub-microsecond one-way time synchronization protocol which is used for time stamping the acquired data. The communication module was implemented in a 4-metal,$0.35~\mu \text{m}$CMOS technology. The maximum data rate of the system is 35 Mbps while supporting up to 250 sensors, which exceeds current BAN applications scenarios.

This paper presents the recent results obtained from the work that have been carried out with the aim of implementing Source Routing Minimum Cost Forwarding (SRMCF) protocol over IPv6 and the TSCH mode of IEEE 802.15.4e (6TiSCH), evaluating the performance of these protocols for the Internet of Things (IoT) and for different applications in healthcare, medical monitoring and urban mobility. To perform the new experiments presented here, this work is making use of the OpenWSN project platform, which implements IEEE 802.15.4e in an open source environment. The evaluation process considers the most recent version of the OpenMote-B platform, by considering higher numbers of hop distances and different parameters, such as Packet Loss Ratio (PLR), throughput and Round Trip Time (RTT). Another goal of this work is to investigate the service quality of the IEEE 802.15.4e standard. The research efforts focus on the code programming, and the adaptation of the OpenWSN stack. Experimental results have shown that the proposed protocol is capable of reducing PLR and energy consumption in comparison to the Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy Networks (RPL). For a number hops lower than four hops, the RTT is shorter when the SRMCF protocol is applied.

This work aims at evaluating the impact of considering Ultra High Frequency (UHF), Super High Frequency (SHF) and millimetre wavebands (mmWaves), in the optimization of economic trade-off of small cell networks, by considering different path loss models. The two slope urban micro Line-of-Sight (UMiLoS) model for UHF/SHF bands (from the ITU-R 2135 Report) is compared with the modified Friis propagation model for frequencies above 24 GHz. The variation of the carrier-to-noise-plus-interference ratio with the coverage distance is assessed, and its influence in the radio and network optimization process is explored by means of the study of the variation of the equivalent supported throughput at the 2.6, 3.5, 28, 38, 60 and 73 GHz frequency bands. The observed higher supported throughput for the longest cell lengths at the UHF/SHF bands (compared to the millimetre wavebands), is mostly due to the reduction caused by the behaviour of their two-slope propagation model. By assuming null fixed costs (license) for the millimetre wavebands and equal values of the fixed cost at 2.6 and 3.5 GHz, we have analysed the economic trade-off of these pico-cellular networks in regular cellular topologies. We have learned that, on the one hand, at 60 GHz, owing to the oxygen absorption excess, there is an optimum of the revenue in percentage terms for values of the cell length, R, equal to 35 m and a decreasing behaviour after this optimum value, while for the 28, 38 and 73 GHz bands the profit starts to decrease after R ≈ 15 m. On the other hand, in the UHF/SHF bands, the profit is very low for the shortest Rs, and starts to increase at a distance equal to the ratio between the break-point distance and the co-channel reuse factor and achieves maxima for values of R equal to circa 200 and 240 m, at 2.6 and 3.5 GHz, respectively.

Uncoordinated deployment of HeNBs has been widely considered, in the research community. However, due to economic or physical constraints, a coordinated deployment of HeNBs can also be considered. This work studies a selected examples of HeNB deployment. We consider the deployment of four Enterprise HeNB which serve up to 8 simultaneous users, in a building, with a geometry of 5x5 apartments. From the theoretical study on the average SINR, we have learned that the smaller the apartment areas are the higher the values for the average SINR are. The performance evolution of the system focuses on the values obtained for the average goodput, Packet Loss Ratio (PLR) and delay for the Proportional Fair, Frame Level Scheduler (FLS) and Exponential Rule (EXPRule) schedulers, with users using a video and a best effort flows at the same time. For the video flows the maximum average goodput was obtained with the FLS scheduler, but when the PLR is taken into account the EXPRule present a slight advantage. In the case of the BE flows, the EXPRule present the best performance. But the main lesson learned is that it is possible to operate a coordinated HeNB deployments without setting the transmitter power of the HeNBs to the maximum value, which can be a step to achieve a greener system.

The unsupervised and chaotic deployment of Home eNBs (HeNBs) is leading to high levels of interference. To understand the behaviour of the interference of these uncoordinated deployments is vital to reach significant capacity improvement and also to explore opportunities to save energy. This paper considers high and middle interference level scenarios, with a maximum of four users per cell. HeNBs indoor deployed is considered within building. We theoretically analyse the traffic performance of this scenario through the study of the Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise-Ratio (SINR). Through the use of the LTE-Sim simulator one obtains the quality indicators for two flows that are being utilised by the users. Video and best effort are studied, while varying the transmitter power and the areas of the apartments. The achieved SINR is higher (around 10 dBm) when the area of the cells is smaller. The variation of the transmitter power of the HeNBs does not present any significant impact. Noticeable throughout the simulations is observed that is possible to operate the system without setting the transmitter power of HeNBs to the maximum value at both interference levels. Simulation results also show that with the considered flows is possible to serve the maximum number of four users per HeNB with high quality. This statement is confirmed by the maximum achieved Packet Loss Ratio for video with a value of value of 1.6 %, which is lower than the maximum of 2 % indicated by the 3GPP. Taking into account the obtained results it is possible to promote a reduction in energy consumption of the HeNBs without penalizing the service quality.

This work explores the viability of 5G New Radio spectrum sharing in Ultra High Frequency (UHF), Super High Frequency (SHF) and millimetre wavebands(mmWaves) in outdoor environments. In the mmWaves the linear cellular topology is considered while in the UHF/SHF bands cells with hexagonal shape are assumed. Performance evaluation includes the study of the behaviour of PHY and supported throughput for 2.6, 3.5, 28, 38, 60 and 73 GHz. While the two-slope model is considered for the 2.6 and 3.5 GHz frequency bands, the modified Friis propagation model, with shadow fading, and different values for the standard deviation, is the considered in the millimetre wavebands. We clearly observe that, for coverage distances up to circa 100 m, the supported throughput is higher at the millimetre wavebands, mainly due to the reduction that characterizes the application of the two-slope propagation model at the UHF/SHF bands.

In this work, we identify and discuss the potentialities of mobile cellular communications in the millimetre wavebands, showing that very high bit/data rates can be supported in small cells with short-range coverage. We study the behaviour of the carrier-to-noise-plus-interference ratio with the coverage distance (and the actual distance from users to the eNBs) in actual environments and the respective analysis of the impact in cellular planning and optimization process. We assess the equivalent supported throughput within cells with reuse pattern K=2, assuming, in this preliminary phase, the use of LTE. In terms of cell coverage and the computation of interference, LoS propagation models have been considered at the 28, 38, 60 and 73 GHz frequency bands. From these analytical computations, we conclude that, at 28 GHz, although lower system capacity is achieved for very short coverage distances of the order of 25 m, in comparison to the 73 GHz frequency band, there is an enhancement in the supported throughput for longer coverage ranges, and it is clearly more favourable for the lowest frequency band. Owing to the additional attenuation of oxygen, the 60 GHz frequency band is more challenging, as the lowest values of the co-channel interference due to the additional oxygen attenuation originate higher values for the supported throughput, even for lower values of the reuse pattern. Based on these results, costs and revenues are studied. Revenues are proportional to the supported throughput and the profit is generally a declining function with cell radii. The highest profit corresponds to the shortest cell radii, up to 80 m, and the best results occur for the 28 GHz band.

Carrier Aggregation (CA) has been proposed by 3GPP LTE-Advanced to meet or even exceed IMT-Advanced systems enhanced peak data rates requirements. In its rationale, multiple Component Carriers (CC) can be flexibly aggregated so that user equipment can access a total bandwidth of up to 100 MHz. As each CC has the same structure as the one from LTE R8, CA does not require notable changes in the LTE physical layer structure. Nevertheless, the way radio resources are allocated to mobile users in CA scenarios is still an hot research topic and the availability of an open source tool modelling such kind of feature is highly demanded in both academia and industry contexts. The present contribution is three-folded. First, it presents an open source and freeware extension of the well-known LTE-Sim simulator, which implements CA functionalities. Second, it also proposes an implementation of multi-band scheduling strategies able to optimally distribute radio resource among mobile users in the presence of multiple CCs and strict Quality of Service (QoS) constraints. Third, computer simulations have been also carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the aforementioned contributions. In particular, simulation results show the capacity improvements achieved by the proposed Enhanced Multi Scheduler against systems without CA, considering values of the bandwidth per component carrier of 5 and 20 MHz, in terms of average cell packet loss, delay, goodput and spectral efficiency.

This work proposes an empirical propagation model to obtain the path loss, and therefore determine the average received power, of a signal for a specific outdoor urban scenario with UAVs. The proposed 3D propagation model for terrestrial cellular networks generalizes the LUI model and is valid in the frequency ranges from GSM, UMTS and LTE technologies. We report experimental work in 3D space, considering the height, the antennas base station tilt, sectorization, angle and distances profile. The experimental work included in this study appropriately agrees with the proposed theoretical model; hence, the proposed model is adequate for cellular planning tools.

In this paper, we discuss wireless sensor and networking technologies for swarms of inexpensive aquatic surface drones in the context of the HANCAD project. The goal is to enable the swarm to perform maritime tasks such as sea-border patrolling and environmental monitoring, while keeping the cost of each drone low. Communication between drones is essential for the success of the project. Preliminary experiments show that XBee modules are promising for energy efficient multi-hop drone-to-drone communication.

IEEE 802.15.4 Medium Access Control (MAC) layer does not include the Request-To-Send/Clear-To-Send (RTS/CTS) handshake mechanism, in order to overcome the hidden node problem that affects Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). In this paper we propose and analyse the use of RTS/CTS in IEEE 802.15.4 for the nonbeacon-enable mode. The proposed solution shows that by considering the RTS/CTS mechanism combined with packet concatenation we improve the network performance in terms of maximum throughput, minimum delay and bandwidth effciency. In IEEE 802.15.4 with RTS/CTS, the backoff procedure process is not repeated for each data packet sent unlike the basic access mode of IEEE 802.15.4, but only for each RTS/CTS set. Therefore, the channel utilization is maximized by decreasing the deferral time period before transmitting a data packet. Our work introduces an analytical model capable of accounting the retransmission delay and the maximum number of backoff stages. The successful validation of our analytical model is carried out by comparison against simulation results by using the OMNeT++ simulator.

With nowadays evolution of wireless network technologies and the growth of novel wireless multimedia services it is critical for network and service providers to be able to assess user's perceptual multimedia quality, for commercial and technical reasons. As so, we present wireless network services and applications characterization requirements, updated to current specifications. We considered recommendations for some major regulations entities, such as the ITU, 3GPP, WiMAX Forum and the European project EU-MESH. In the case of audio and video applications, the latest and most used encoding schemes were addressed by considering the WiMAX Forum recommendations. In turn, as not only the Quality of Service (QoS) needs to be addressed, we propose a model for the mapping between QoS parameters and user's Quality of Experience (QoE) for multimedia applications. Measurable QoS parameters can be gathered throughout the network and mapped into an effective QoE estimation. The model has been obtained by means of mathematical regression and the fittings are validated by analysing the coefficient of determination, R2, between the results from our model and MOS experimental values. The achieved results are R2= 0.94, 0.84 and 0.98 for gaming, video and audio, respectively. The corresponding mean square error is approximately zero in all cases.

Field trials have been performed in Covilhã to identify the spectrum opportunities for radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting through power density measurements from 350 MHz to 3 GHz. Based on the identification of the most promising opportunities, a dual-band printed antenna was conceived, operating at GSM bands (900/1800), with gains of 1.8 and 2.06 dBi, and efficiency varying from 77.6 to 82%, for the highest and lowest operating frequency bands, respectively. In this paper, guidelines for the design of RF energy harvesting circuits and choice of textile materials for a wearable antenna are briefly discussed. Besides, we address the development and experimental characterization of three different prototypes of a five-stage Dickson voltage multiplier (with and without impedance matching circuit) responsible for RF energy harvesting. All the three prototypes (1, 2 and 3) can power supply the sensor node for RF received powers of 2 dBm, -3 dBm and -4 dBm, and conversion efficiencies of 6, 18 and 20%, respectively.

Most studies on performance of IEEE 802.11 distributed coordination function (DCF) have proved that the binary exponential backoff (BEB) algorithm suffers from low throughput, long transmission delays and low transmission reliability, for a high traffic load. In this paper, we propose a two-phase contention window (TPCW) access mechanism that enhances the aggregate throughput and transmission reliability while decreasing the medium access delay. In addition, this scheme aims at being computationally simple. This work characterizes the performance of the TPCW mechanism for different parameterization values. An analytical model is proposed for the TPCW access mechanism, which characterizes the frame transmission reliability, the total transmission delay and the aggregate throughput. The validity of our analytical model is verified through extensive simulations. By comparing the performance results, we conclude that the proposed scheme can significantly enhance IEEE 802.11 in terms of frame transmission reliability, total transmission delay and aggregate throughput.

In this paper, we identify the spectrum opportunities for radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting through power density measurements from 350 MHz to 3 GHz. The field trials have been performed in Covilhâ by using the NAKDA-SMR spectrum analyser with a measuring antenna. Based on the identification of the most promising opportunities, a dual-band band printed antenna operating at GSM bands (900/1800) is proposed, with gains of the order 1.8-2.06 dBi and efficiency 77.6-84%. Guidelines for the design of RF energy harvesting circuits and choice of textile materials for a wearable antenna are also discussed. Besides, we address the guidelines for designing circuits to harvest energy in a scenario where a wireless body area network (WBAN) is being sustained by a TX91501 Powercasf®RF dedicated transmitter and a five-stage Dickson voltage multiplier responsible for harvesting the RF energy. The IRIS motes, considered for our WBAN scenario, can perpetually operate if the RF received power attains at least -10 dBm.

One of the fundamental reasons for the IEEE 802.15.4 standard Medium Access Control (MAC) inefficiency is overhead. The current paper proposes and analyses the Sensor Block Acknowledgment MAC (SBACK-MAC) protocol, a new innovative protocol that allows the aggregation of several acknowledgment responses in one special BACK Response packet. Two different solutions are addressed. The first one considers the SBACK-MAC protocol in the presence of BACK Request (concatenation) while the second one considers the SBACK-MAC in the absence of BACK Request (piggyback). The proposed solutions address a distributed scenario with single-destination and single-rate frame aggregation. The throughput and delay performance is mathematically derived under ideal conditions (a channel environment with no transmission errors). The proposed schemes are compared against the basic access mode of IEEE 802.15.4 through extensive simulations by employing the OM-NET++ simulator. We demonstrate that the network performance is significantly improved in terms of throughput and end-to-end delay.

In this paper, a new routing protocol is proposed for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). The scenario taken is a WSN to be deployed non-intrusively in moving vehicles. WSNs are a class of wireless networks that require specific protocols, whose execution occurs in resource-constrained nodes. As a consequence, the protocol that calculates the optimal path for the packets to reach the sink must be lightweight. In this context, not only the mobility of nodes is challenging, but also the energy consumption. The innovation introduced by this protocol is its combination of the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) and number of hops to find the best path for the packets, allowing to have the benefits in terms of end-to-end delay and packet delivery ratio. Simulation results show that, when compared with approaches that only take into account the number of hops or RSSI, the protocol increases the number of delivered packets, whilst decreasing the end-to-end delay and the energy consumption. It can also deliver up to 271% more packets, while using less 71% of energy than Flooding.

Dynamic load and spectrum usage management techniques can significantly improve the energy efficiency of mobile communications systems. This paper considers: (i) the opportunistic reallocation of traffic loads between bands to allow radio network equipment in the bands that the traffic is originated from to be powered down, and (ii) the opportunistic selection of more appropriate spectrum based on propagation characteristics to minimize necessary transmission power through improving propagation and/or reducing power leaking into co-channel cells in frequency reuse cases. This paper addresses the simulation of video, FTP and HTTP (web browsing) traffic sources for configurations representing LTE and HSDPA telecommunications networks, and shows that the opportunistic reallocation of users between bands to power down radio equipment achieves a significant saving of 50% or more in from-the-socket power. Furthermore, it shows that the opportunistic reallocation of users/links to minimize transmission power through using more appropriate propagation spectrum leads to a further modest reduction in from-the-socket power consumption.

This paper presents an unified and empirical propagation model to obtain the received power in mixed scenarios, with outdoor and indoor environments, or in a scenario with only one kind of environment, either for an urban, sub-urban or rural scenario, with or without vegetation. This unified model is called the Lisbon University Institute (LUI) one and can be included into planning tools for wireless communication systems. The developed model is suitable for Path Loss prediction in mobile, as well as fixed wireless network systems, e.g., Wireless Fidelity, Universal Mobile Telecommunications System and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, considering Line-of-Sight or Non-Line-of-Sight propagation conditions.

This paper presents the validation of the unified propagation model, the Lisbon University Institute (LUI) model, which is valid for three wireless technologies: Wireless Fidelity, Universal Mobile Telecommunications System and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access. With this purpose in mind, several experimental trials for those technologies were performed in different scenarios, where mixed environments (outdoor and indoor) were included. This generalized and unified propagation model was tuned by adjusting specific parameters for each different technology, based on the achieved results from the field experiments.

The analysis of the impact of voice-over-IP into HSPA and LTE multi-service traffic is a challenge. The validation of a Bernoulli-Poisson-Pascal multi-service traffic model in the presence of mobility is explored for different values for the number of channels. A mixture of voice (VOI) and video telephony (VTE) is considered. In a previous work, a critical situation was assumed where the total number of channels was exactly the same as needed by four VTE sessions. However, when few extra channels are added there is a significant reduction on VTE on/off blocking probability. With this few extra resources, VOI can now be easily supported. Since it is supported on top of a system saturated with VTE sessions, Pbonoffdecreases 4.6 times for VTE. Since the number of resources is not critical anymore, the range of values of the offered traffic for which the theoretical model agrees with simulation results becomes wider. There is no significative difference between the multi-service traffic results for the seven cell geometry and the roundabout (or ring) cellular topologies in the presence of mobility.

In fixed worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX), radio and network planning can be optimised by tuning a cost/revenue function which incorporates the cost of building and maintaining the infrastructure and the effect of the available resources on revenues. Supported throughput typically decreases with larger cells because of the implied greater average distance of users from the base station, although the use of sub-channelisation can keep throughput steady up to a larger radius. Sectorisation can improve the throughput of the cell by facilitating the use of higher order modulation and coding schemes; besides, sectorisation equipment is more expensive, and there is the need for three times more spectrum bandwidth, increasing costs while increasing system capacity by a factor of 3. On a multi-cell level, system capacity is determined by the chosen frequency reuse pattern, K. In this study, under the assumption of a revenue per Mbyte of information transfer somewhere between 0.0025 euro and 0.010 euro, the choice of K=3 or 4 with sectorial cells is preferable to the use of omnidirectional cells with K=7. This study also concludes that a cell radius in the range 1000–1500 m is preferable, corresponding to profit in percentage terms of near the achievable maximum, while keeping costs acceptable.

In this paper we present several different approaches to a routing calculation in an ad-hoc network. By using different weights for each link, each algorithm generates a different path, with its own number of hops and maximum throughput. Tests were performed in our own IEEE 802.11e simulator and the results allow to conclude that the cross-layer approach has advantages over the traditional one. In fact, our proposals delivers up to three times more packets than the standard one, whilst diminishing the end-to-end delay. Results show that the proposal which privileges users with a baud rate near the maximum possible achieves better performance than the others. A baud rate near the maximum corresponds to links with the highest signal to interference-plus-noise ratio. The proposed technique privileges the use of paths with a larger number of hops, and reduces the packet end-to-end delay.

In beyond 3G systems, one of the important factors is to address radio access technology (RAT) selection and load balancing between heterogeneous networks to ensure high spectral efficiency in an era where spectral resources are at a premium. This work aims to address the feasibility of utilizing WiFi as complementary service for HSDPA, to prevent quality of service deterioration in the event of network overload in HSDPA during the busy period. The proposed RAT selection algorithm is based on the load of each system, and the results show that the outage probability can be improved by up to 45% relative to a stand-alone HSDPA system.

"Motivation to the need of Cellular WiMAX Planning Tools. Wireless Planning Tool. Propagation models (outdoor and indoor). Capacity models and algorithms. Planning Tool Framework. Point-to-multipoint cellular planning (including C/N and C/I issues). LoS dimensioning (urban and rural areas). Advanced Topics on LoS Computation. Measurement campaigns and network operation. Topics on Point-to-point WiMAX links."

This paper addresses aspects of design of WiMAX wireless networks to establish a point-to-point, PTP, link with Alvarion BreezeNET B equipment, from the Health Sciences Faculty of University of Beira Interior to Hospital Sousa Martins (Guarda), and also presents a field trial with pre-WiMAX PTP equipment. The design of the link with relays had into consideration the carrier to noise ratio, C/N, and the minimum carrier to noise ratio with fading, C/Nminjad. From the dimensioning process, with gamma = 2, for the second clause, the three types of modulations (low to high order ones) can be used. Field trials results are similar to the ones extracted from the theoretical model. Cellular WiMAX planning and tests were also addressed and there is a need of using sectorial antennas to optimize coverage and interference.

A multi-service traffic model is briefly presented, and its validation is achieved by using event-based simulation results which consider the burstiness of traffic. A simulator was produced to extract conclusions about blocking and handover failure probabilities in a multi-service bursty traffic context. Simulations, were performed for different cases, from single- to multi-service situations, and from absence to presence of mobility. Besides quality of service results in the air interface, including blocking and handover failure probabilities, the simulator allows for extracting conclusions about the validation of the Bernoulli-Poisson-Pascal model for the computation of the on/off blocking probability, the ratio between the number of call rejected at the beginning of an on period and the total number of bursts generated during a session. In the single-service case, the theoretical and the experimental values of on/off blocking probability are close to each other, and there is an almost perfect concordance between theoretical and simulation values when the average sojourn time in cells is equal to the average holding time. In the multi-service case, the behaviour is not exactly the same but a coherent behaviour is achieved for an average traffic per user up to 0.10 Erl.

An overview of all-IP enhanced Universal Mobile Telecommunication System, E-UMTS, service needs in the business city centre, BCC, scenario is first presented. Then, E-UMTS traffic generation and activity models are described and characterised. System level simulations are carried out and the enhanced performance is demonstrated based in a single quality parameter, which simultaneously accounts for call blocking and handover failure probabilities. End-to-end delays do not present a limitation. By considering a grade of service of 1% for the quality parameter, and different hypothesis for costs and prices, an optimum coverage distance is obtained around ~200-425 m, which maximises the supported throughput per km2. However, results for the profit in percentage indicates that coverage distances in the range 395-425 m should be used in BCC.

It is shown that enhanced UMTS is 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

A multi-service traffic model is proposed, and its validation is achieved by using event-based simulation results. In the single-service case, theoretical and experimental results for ON-OFF blocking probability are close to each other, and there is an almost perfect concordance between theoretical and simulation values when the average sojourn time in cells is equal to the average holding time. In the multi-service case, the behaviour is not exactly the same but a coherent behaviour is achieved for an average traffic per user up to 0.10 Erl.

Multi-service traffic has a strong impact in mobile broadband systems (MBS) revenues, allowing one to obtain merit functions for optimisation purposes. A 'net cost' model is presented for the design trade-offs between re-use pattern, K, the coverage distance, R, and the spectral efficiency, S/sub ef/(R). It allows for the determination of the revenue per basic channel, R/sub 384/, that achieves a given value for the annual profit per kilometre. Comparing the urban with the roads scenarios for R=100 in and K=2, whereas (S/sub ef/)/sub TOT/=32.2 and 15.2%, R/sub 384/ has to be 0.005 and 0.045 #/min, respectively, i.e., the prices in the roads scenario (with higher terminal mobility) have to be around one order of magnitude higher than in the urban one.

Multi-service traffic engineering has a strong impact in mobile broadband systems (MBS) revenues, and it will allow one to obtain merit functions for optimisation purposes, a key aspect in cellular planning. MBS applications have access to different service components, with different data rates and average durations. Fast mobility has an important impact in handover failure probability, hence, in system capacity. While in the business city centre and other urban scenarios mobility has no significant effect, it affects the supported traffic in main roads. A reduction of up to 54% may come as a consequence.

The multi-service traffic analysis of a mobile broadband system (MBS), with a given mixture of applications, requires the definition of their main operation environments, corresponding to the residential, the mixed (half business/half residential), the business and the industrial markets. In this work, the respective deployment scenarios are defined by the values for the usage of a set of 26 applications. The usage of broadband applications (>2 Mb/s) increases from the residential market (17%) to the business one (25%), corresponding to a decrease in the usage of wideband (<2 Mb/s) ones (from 50 down to 42%), and to a constant value for the usage of low-MBS ([128, 384] kb/s) ones (33%); slight differences exist from the business to the industrial market. The actual number of users also depends on the density factor, varying from 0.004 users/m/sup 2/ in the industrial scenario to 0.150 users/m/sup 2/ in hotspots, e.g., offices.

Approximate models for traffic resulting from mobility are presented and their validity is examined for a system without guard channels for handover. The blocking probability for both new and handover calls is assessed via a Markov chain, which can be approximated by a model that allows the use of the theory from Jackson networks. Some examples are given where the blocking and handover failure probabilities are computed; their approximation error being negligible in a wide range of coverage distances foreseen for mobile broadband system environments, mainly for the blocking probability. Although it is usual to consider the handover traffic as Poisson distributed, one can show that for homogeneous traffic in the whole coverage area this is not strictly necessary. The independence among the number of calls being served in each cell is also presented as a conclusion in the range of validity of the approximation.

Models allowing the study of the influence of coverage distance and mobile velocity on the supported traffic and on the new calls traffic linear density are examined, and results are obtained for typical scenarios in a mobile broadband system (MBS) with a linear coverage geometry. In order to cope with handover failure probability requirements, the use of guard channels for handover is assumed, mainly for high mobility scenarios. For these scenarios one concludes that there is a degradation in system capacity because, for the typical coverage distances foreseen for MBS, the new calls traffic linear density is one order of magnitude bellow the values obtained for the pedestrian scenario (where it is approximately 15 Erlang/km), decreasing from 2.47 Erlang/km, in the urban scenario, down to 0.84 Erlang/km, in the highway scenario, when two guard channels are used.

A model was presented for the design tradeoffs between reuse distance D and coverage length R for cellular planning of a linear coverage situation. This model allows the determination of (R,D) pairs satisfying given raw bit error rate constraints. A "net cost model" was also presented, and the dependence of the cost on the reuse distance was studied. The existence of profitable cell configurations for the system were discussed. The noise/interference, cost, and revenue models used consisted of simple linear functions, but the approach followed is general in the sense that the same steps can be used if more complex models are used.