Impact of base station antenna vertical beam width and tilt on the performance of LTE networks

Abstract

In this study, system level simulations are performed using two different vertical antenna radiation patterns from two real base station antennas with otherwise similar characteristics. The vertical half power beam widths of the two antennas in the investigation were 4 and 8 degrees respectively. In addition the two antennas are compared with the ideal antenna model proposed by 3GPP. The results show that the choice of vertical beam width and electrical tilt setting may improve both the coverage and capacity of up to 50% in an LTE network. However, the optimum vertical beam width and tilt differs for different network sizes and propagation environment.