Performance Analysis of the Impact of Rain Attenuated Signal on Mobile Cellular Terrestrial Links in Jos, Nigeria

The 12 to 18 GHz frequency bands are commonly deployed for mobile network metropolitan microwave radio links using small antennas and low transmit power to deliver high channel capacities. Jos Plateau region with the blend of tropical and temperate climate is characterized with high severe rain impairment on terrestrial links operating at frequencies above 10 GHz, for mobile network backhaul system remaining a big challenge in the design of a microwave radio link. Therefore, this study presents the performance analysis of the impact of rain attenuated signal on mobile cellular terrestrial links in Jos under clear sky and rain condition. The cell site locations were divided in two clusters of Jos lowland and Jos highland. Drive test tools, radio local monitor terminal (LMT) and Davis weather station were employed over radio links interconnecting live 2G/3G nodal network, for the measurement of the mean value of one minute rainfall rates and the corresponding rain-induced signal. The results obtained revealed that more budget provision was obtained by the study calculation in over 60% of the study centers. More so, when the study fade margin estimation was put to test, up to 4.27 Mbps download speed was achieved, the speed almost as high as the highest speed, 4.29 Mbps recorded under the clear sky for ITU-R. More so, as low as 0.7% packet loss was recorded against the study link margin budget under same rain condition causing over 62.3% for PLA010 in Jos lowland cluster. Also, instances of slight under-budgeting were observed in highland clusters PLA064 and PLA025 as 35.01 dB and 34.99 dB respectively when tested with the Study calculated values.