Dimensioning cellular multihop WiMAX networks

WiMAX networks are foreseen to cover diverse geographic regions. On the one hand they shall cover urban areas where a high density of buildings and indoor usage prevent Line-of-Sight (LOS) propagation conditions. On the other hand WiMAX networks shall provide access over large geographic regions in remote rural areas, where over the rooftop deployment of Tx and Rx antennas allow for LOS conditions. However, in both scenarios it is challenging to cover the entire service area. Either huge parts are heavily shadowed from the Base Station (BS) or the link distances are very large. In both cases relays are foreseen to extend the range of the BS and to increase the cell capacity allowing for a cost-efficient deployment and service. This paper discusses an analytical approach to dimension cellular multihop networks based on the WiMAX technology. A worst case analysis results in valuable indications for dimensioning cellular WiMAX networks within various multihop scenarios. Within these scenarios relays are operating in subsequent time slots as well as simultaneously separated only in space. The following performance evaluation allows to compare singlehop and multihop deployments in terms of capacity. Finally, a general guideline proposes to use multihop deployments in some scenarios, whereas it advises singlehop deployments in others.