Performance Comparison between Massive MIMO Based Network and Conventional LTE Network for High Speed Broadband Connection in Rural Areas of Tanzania

Abstract

People in rural areas need high-speed broadband connection for various services, including e-governance, virtual class rooms, telemedicine, video-on-demand, and home entertainment. However, in order to provide broadband services, service providers must incur high deployment costs and should wait for a long time for return on investments. Long-Term Evolution (LTE) has been proposed to overcome high deployment cost, although this technology suffers from poor coverage in rural areas. Thus, massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) with its favorable propagation phenomenon can be exploited as an alternative solution to boost signal coverage in rural areas. The current study compared the performance of broadband networks for Tanzanian rural areas based on massive MIMO technology and LTE. Performance comparison is confined to Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP), User Signal-Interference Noise Ratio (SINRu) and Downlink (DL) throughput metrics for 5 MHz, 10 MHz and 20 MHz channel bandwidths at 2.1 GHz and 700 MHz carrier frequencies. The results show that, in terms of RSRP and SINRu, the performance of massive MIMO network at 5 MHz is higher than that of conventional LTE networks at 10 MHz and 20 MHz. Massive MIMO network performs better at lower channel bandwidth, making it more suitable for deployment in rural areas.