Impact of indoor network on the macrocell HSPA performance

In this paper, the impact of the high speed packet access (HSPA) indoor network on the macrocell HSPA performance is studied based on field measurements. The indoor network configuration and the indoor antenna locations were varied for the measurements. The performance evaluation was based on data throughput and link quality parameters in downlink and in uplink. According to the measurement results an indoor network has an impact on the macrocell performance on both downlink and uplink. The downlink E_c/N₀ and throughput measurements show degradation in signal quality and downlink performance close to indoor antennas. The uplink measurements indicate that indoor network users may raise uplink interference levels at macro cell and thus cause performance or coverage degradation. However, the impact measured close to the indoor network was rather local, thus it is still recommended to exchange a small portion of the macrocell performance for a significant indoor traffic boost gained by implementing an indoor network.