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Coverage and Link Quality Improvement of Cellular IoT Networks with Multi-Operator and Multi-Link Strategies

While the rollout of the fifth generation of mobile communications is already being discussed, existing networks are still suffering from major coverage gaps even years after their introduction. For the implementation of most IoT applications, however, a mobile network with comprehensive availability is a mandatory prerequisite. Therefore, this paper addresses the problem of coverage gaps and investigates the potential for improvement through multi-operator strategies for LTE and cellular IoT (cIoT) networks in the urban environment of the Smart City Dortmund. Additionally, the potential of data rate improvement through multi-link strategies is evaluated, enabling sufficient data rates of cIoT even in extreme coupling loss conditions. It is shown that in outdoor scenarios both LTE and cIoT can provide 100% coverage, but in indoor and deep indoor scenarios, the Mobile Network Operators (MNO) can not provide full network coverage. When considering multi-operator strategies, the LTE deep indoor coverage can be increased by up to 40%. cIoT can provide full coverage at a Maximum Coupling Loss (MCL) of 164 dB even in deep indoor scenarios using only a single operator, but with very low data rates. Even though cIoT enables sufficient coverage, multi-link communication enabling multi-operator strategies can increase the downlink data rates by a factor of 2.8.