Capacity benefits of STTD in a homogeneous UMTS network

The paper examines the capacity and coverage benefits of space time transmit diversity (STTD) in a homogeneous voice populated UMTS network in a simulation environment. The simulated network consists of 37 3-sector sites in a macro-cellular environment. The main input parameters varied to evaluate the performance include the speed and multipath conditions of users. Performance of various scenarios is analysed by considering the outage statistics and link E_b/N₀ requirements. The capacity increase for each scenario is as follows: metropolitan line of sight, 86%; metropolitan suburban, 50%; highway/urban, 46%; overall network, 43%. These results represent the performance statistics under a steady state condition with no explicit modelling of motion.