A Feasibility Analysis of the Use of IEEE 802.11ah to extend 4G Network Coverage

Main Article Content

Rini Cahyani
Doan Perdana
Ahmad Tri Hanuranto

Abstract

The 4G LTE network has been launched in many countries including Indonesia, and all telecommunications operators are competing to expand their service coverage. Due to various reasons, there are a lot of areas that remains uncovered by the 4G LTE network. With the increase in cellular traffic, operators must continue to improve their service coverage. One of the scenarios to expand the service coverage is by offloading the traffic to a more cost-effective 802.11ah network in which one 802.11ah access point can serve thousands of mobile devices and support the Machine-to-Machine (M2M)/Internet of Things (IoT) communication. This study simulates the effect of the number of nodes on MCS performance evaluation of the 802.11ah protocol. The simulation is conducted by utilizing NS3 software to evaluate the throughput, delay, packet delivery ratio and energy consumption. This study also simulates 802.11ah coverage prediction to expand the LTE networks by utilizing Atoll Radio Planning Software. The results show that the performance obtained by varying the number of nodes/users from 100 to 1000 nodes is technically acceptable. In addition, the service coverage of 802.11ah network can solve the problem of blank spot area.

Article Details

Section
Telecommunication
Author Biographies

Rini Cahyani, Telkom University

I am Rini Cahyani ST, degree was at STT Telkom 1999 and finished 2005, now iam working at PT Nexwawe for freelancer Account Manager and magister student at telkom University.

Doan Perdana, Telkom University

My name Doan Perdana received his BSC and MSC degree in telecommunication Engineering , from the Institute of Technology Telkom in 2004 and 2012, representatively. he completed his PhD in Electrical Engineering Department, Univrsity of Indonesia. His interest include Telecommunication System and Computer Engineering.

Ahmad Tri Hanuranto, Telkom University

My Name AT Hanuranto i am 45 years old received bachelor degree and  master degree from Electrical engineering Institute Technology Bandung in 1990 and 1999 , now iam  professioanal lecture at Telcom university.  corrent position is Directur of resorces and carrierr development Telkom University Bandung

References

Adame, T., Bel, A., Bellalta, B., Barcelo, J., Gonzalez, J., & Oliver, M. (2013). Capacity analysis of IEEE 802.11ah WLANs for M2M communications. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Including Subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 8310 LNCS. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03871-1_13

Ameigeiras, P., Navarro-Ortiz, J., Andres-Maldonado, P., Lopez-Soler, J. M., Lorca, J., Perez-Tarrero, Q., & Garcia-Perez, R. (2016). 3GPP QoS-based scheduling framework for LTE. Eurasip Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13638-016-0565-9

Aust, S., Prasad, R. V., & Niemegeers, I. G. M. M. (2012). IEEE 802.11ah: Advantages in standards and further challenges for sub 1 GHz Wi-Fi. IEEE International Conference on Communications. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICC.2012.6364903

Dawaliby, S., Bradai, A., & Pousset, Y. (2017). In depth performance evaluation of LTE-M for M2M communications. 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1109/wimob.2016.7763264

Khorov, E., Krotov, A., & Lyakhov, A. (2015). Modelling machine type communication in IEEE 802.11ah networks. 2015 IEEE International Conference on Communication Workshop (ICCW), 1149–1154. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCW.2015.7247332

Khorov, E., Lyakhov, A., Krotov, A., & Guschin, A. (2015). A survey on IEEE 802.11ah: An enabling networking technology for smart cities. Computer Communications. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comcom.2014.08.008

Masek, P., Zeman, K., Hosek, J., Tinka, Z., Makhlouf, N., Muthanna, A., … Novotny, V. (2015). User performance gains by data offloading of LTE mobile traffic onto unlicensed IEEE 802.11 links. 2015 38th International Conference on Telecommunications and Signal Processing, TSP 2015. https://doi.org/10.1109/TSP.2015.7296235

Muteba, F., Djouani, K., & Olwal, T. (2019). A comparative survey study on LPWA IoT technologies: Design, considerations, challenges and solutions. Procedia Computer Science, 155, 636–641. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2019.08.090

Oktaviana, A., Perdana, D., & Negara, R. M. (2018). Performance Analysis on IEEE 802.11ah Standard with Enhanced Distributed Channel Access Mechanism. CommIT (Communication and Information Technology) Journal, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.21512/commit.v12i1.3908

Park, C. W., Hwang, D., & Lee, T. J. (2014). Enhancement of IEEE 802.11ah MAC for M2M communications. IEEE Communications Letters, 18(7), 1151–1154. https://doi.org/10.1109/LCOMM.2014.2323311

Santi, S., Tian, L., Khorov, E., & Famaey, J. (2019). Accurate energy modeling and characterization of ieee 802.11ah raw and twt. Sensors (Switzerland), 19(11). https://doi.org/10.3390/s19112614

Seok, Y., & Law, D. (2016). IEEE 802.11ah (Wi-Fi in 900 MHz License-exempt Band) for IoT Application. Retrieved November 9, 2020, from IEEE Standards University website: https://www.standardsuniversity.org/e-magazine/august-2016-volume-6/ieee-802-11ah-wi-fi-900-mhz-license-exempt-band-iot-application/

Seybold, J. S. (2005). Introduction to RF Propagation. In Introduction to RF Propagation. https://doi.org/10.1002/0471743690

Šljivo, A., Kerkhove, D., Tian, L., Famaey, J., Munteanu, A., Moerman, I., … De Poorter, E. (2018). Performance evaluation of IEEE 802.11ah networks with high-throughput bidirectional traffic. Sensors (Switzerland), 18(2), 1–28. https://doi.org/10.3390/s18020325

Sun, W., Choi, M., & Choi, S. (2017). IEEE 802.11ah: A Long Range 802.11 WLAN at Sub 1 GHz. Journal of ICT Standardization. https://doi.org/10.13052/jicts2245-800x.115

Tian, L., Deronne, S., Latré, S., & Famaey, J. (2016). Implementation and validation of an IEEE 802.11ah Module for ns-3. ACM International Conference Proceeding Series. https://doi.org/10.1145/2915371.2915372

Tian, L., Famaey, J., & Latre, S. (2016). Evaluation of the IEEE 802.11ah Restricted Access Window mechanism for dense IoT networks. WoWMoM 2016 - 17th International Symposium on a World of Wireless, Mobile and Multimedia Networks. https://doi.org/10.1109/WoWMoM.2016.7523502

Tian, L., Šljivo, A., Santi, S., De Poorter, E., Hoebeke, J., & Famaey, J. (2018). Extension of the IEEE 802.11ah ns-3 simulation module. ACM International Conference Proceeding Series, 53–60. https://doi.org/10.1145/3199902.3199906