Analysis of radio access network performance for M2M communications in LTE-A at 800 MHz

This paper studies Machine to Machine (M2M) communications over the Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE□A) operating at 800 MHz band which offers better propagation in indoor and outdoor environments. This research assumes a combination of M2M applications to evaluate the performance of Radio Access Network (RAN) under machines overload in a cellular network. We analyze the performance of M2M devices in the Random Access Channel (RACH) in a macro-cell environment at Bristol city, United Kingdom. Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) level for each device is calculated depending on the path loss (PL) model generated by a propagation modeling tool. Also, we consider the limited resources in the Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH). Different performance metrics are investigated such as the preamble collision probability, the idle probability, and the success probability. The probability of average preamble transmission time, probability of access success, and average access delay are examined. In addition, we analyze the effect of a number of system parameters on the M2M device performance.