Evaluating 60 GHz FWA Deployments for Urban and Rural Environments in Belgium

Fixed wireless access (FWA) provides a solution to compete with fiber deployment while offering reduced costs by using the mmWave bands, including the unlicensed 60 GHz one. This paper evaluates the deployment of FWA networks in the 60 GHz band in realistic urban and rural environment in Belgium. We developed a network planning tool that includes novel backhaul based on the IEEE 802.11ay standard with multi-objective capabilities to maximise the user coverage, providing at least 1 Gbps of bit rate while minimising the required network infrastructure. We evaluate diverse serving node locations, called edge nodes (EN), and the impact of environmental factors such as rain and vegetation on the network design. Extensive simulation results show that defining a proper EN's location is essential to achieve viable user coverage higher than 95%, particularly in urban scenarios where street canyons affect propagation. Rural scenarios require nearly 75 ENs per km2 while urban scenarios require four times (300 ENs per km2) this infrastructure. Finally, vegetation can reduce the coverage by 3% or increment infrastructure up to 7%, while heavy rain can reduce coverage by 5% or increment infrastructure by 15%, depending on the node deployment strategy implemented.