Estimating signal strengths prior to field trials in wireless local loop networks

One issue in giving WIRELESS LOCAL LOOP connections in a rural area is the difficulty of conducting field trials due to poor road conditions and the hilly terrain in Sri Lanka. Extremely poor condition of access roads reduces the efficiency of giving new wireless subscriber connections. Even though at the installation of a base station, the coverage area is defined (around 20 Km radius from base station) due to the hilly and mountainous terrain in Sri Lanka signal strength varies drastically for about 100 m change of distance. There are number of Radio network planning tools or Wireless calculators in the industry with real time corrections like body losses, penetration losses and thermal noise density. But when we apply those in Sri Lankan context, we do not get the correct coverage diagrams. Therefore we propose two new path loss exponents which is suitable for countries like Sri Lanka where the population spread in hills and mountains.