5G Millimeter-wave Fixed Wireless Access: Optimizing Cost and Coverage with Antenna Height Variation using Point-Cloud Path Loss Prediction

The deployment of fifth generation (5G) mobile network millimeter-wave (mmWave) for cellular services faces challenges due to significant signal attenuation from blockages to the signal. 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) has emerged as a promising mmWave application. The economical viability of high frequency FWA typically requires line-of-sight (LoS) connections. The amount of LoS FWA links can be increased by increasing the height of the antenna. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach for optimizing per-household cost effectiveness of a 5G FWA network. For the estimation of LoS connections, our approach relies on a highly accurate channel model derived from point-cloud data with terrain height information. Our empirical measurements confirm that the digital 3D point-cloud map model delivers significantly higher precision compared to other models. We examine how the heights of base transceiver station (BTS) towers and customer premise equipment (CPE) antennas impact the availability of FWA services in a real-world rural setting with 764 houses. For instance, with BTSs set at a height of 70 meters from the ground and CPEs height elevated up to 2 meters from the roof, we achieve a LoS coverage of 62.57%. By factoring in practical deployment costs for BTS and CPE antenna heights, we identify optimal heights that minimize the mmWave network investment per customer.