Sub 1GHz wireless LAN deployment scenarios and design implications in rural areas

Wireless local area networks (WLANs) can provide a very cost-efficient way of license-exempt wireless communication in outdoor regions with low population density. The use of carrier frequencies below 1GHz for wireless data transmissions would make such WLANs highly useful in rural areas due to an improved wireless propagation characteristic and larger coverage range compared to WLANs operating in 2.4GHz/5GHz band. The IEEE 802.11ah Task Group is going to specify a global WLAN standard that utilizes country specific carrier frequencies below 1GHz which are available for license-exempt wireless data transmission in various countries such as United States, Japan, China, Korea and Europe. In this study the design aspects of a new long-range outdoor Sub 1GHz WLAN system will be evaluated. We will discuss various use cases which can be realized in rural areas by using the Sub 1GHz band, such as Smart Grid, Surveillance, and Smart Farming and we will calculate link budgets and transmission outage probabilities to propose basic deployment guidelines for a license-free WLAN system that is designed to operate in the 900 MHz band.