The Potential of Massive-MIMO on TV Towers for Cellular Coverage Extension

Abstract

Because of low potential revenue, network operators have mainly focused on providing connectivity in urban areas rather than in rural areas resulting in technology improvement in favour of urban areas; and consequently, most of remote areas suffer from poor or lack of connectivity. In this paper, we present the potential of massive-MIMO to provide connectivity to sparse areas. We show that we can cover large rural areas with radius of tens of km using massive-MIMO mounted on existing infrastructure of TV towers. We also show that, in contrast with common belief, higher frequencies, e.g., 3500 MHz rather than 700 MHz, can reach farther utilizing massive-MIMO, provided that the antenna area is the same.