Massive MIMO-Based Network Planning and Performance Evaluation for High Speed Broadband Connection in Rural Areas of Tanzania

Abstract

The need for high speed broadband connection in rural areas is inevitable since services like e-governance, virtual classrooms, telemedicine, video-on-demand, home entertainment, etc. are needed. However, in order to provide broadband services, service providers must incur high deployment costs and wait for long time for return on investments. Thus, massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) with its favorable propagation phenomenon can be exploited as an alternative to boost signal coverage in rural areas while providing high speed broadband connection. In this chapter, planning and performance evaluation for massive MIMO network has been conducted for rural areas in Tanzania. Infovista and MATLAB tools were used for network simulation. The results show that massive MIMO network at 5MHz bandwidth performs better in terms of RSRP and SINRu when compared to 10 MHz and 20MHz channel bandwidths.