System level modeling and performance of an outdoor mmWave local area access system

Millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies offer the potential for very large capacity increases from traditional cellular frequencies because of the incredible amount of available spectrum (e.g., 10 GHz in the E-band alone). Additionally the latest channel measurements and research have shown that mmWave frequencies are useable for a 5G-type local area access system. However, employing mmWave frequencies for outdoor local area access presents a challenge particularly from blockage of the signal from the mobile to the access point. Using the latest path loss equations from measured data, a newly developed mmWave channel environment, and a model for distance-dependence LOS blocking probability, system-level capacity results are presented for a dense urban environment. The results show that with adequate access point density that low outage probability can be obtained with cell-edge rates well in excess of 100 Mbps and cell-average user throughputs of up to 5.12 Gbps.