Enhanced UHF propagation predictions in rural areas using a high resolution clutter database

Much effort has been put into constructing planning tools for cellular telephone and personal communications networks. These networks are concentrated in urban areas where most of their customers live or work. The UK government has issued licences for operators to use radio for the provision of telephony and low rate data services in remote rural areas using the 2 GHz band. Planning tools for these services differ from those for cellular networks in that rural areas are important and urban planning is not required. The traffic density in cellular networks usually justifies the purchase cost of detailed building databases for urban areas. Traffic density in rural areas is much less so the purchase of very high resolution clutter databases cannot be justified. This paper describes an investigation into the effect of clutter database resolution on prediction accuracy. A 500 m ground cover (clutter) database is compared with 50 m databases derived from air photographs and satellite images.