5G-RANGE Project Field Trial

Providing broadband Internet access in remote areas have been a challenge to any terrestrial wireless network. The high cost of spectrum license and the limited coverage of current technologies have imposed a prohibitive operational cost for remote areas wireless networks. 5G-RANGE project proposes an innovative physical layer (PHY) and medium access control layer (MAC) layers to opportunistically exploit TV white spaces (TVWS) while providing high throughput in a large coverage area. This paper presents the first field test results based on this new technology. The field trial was performed with the 5G-RANGE project transceiver, implemented for real-time operation over a software-defined radio (SDR) platform. The 2×2 multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) Generalized Frequency Division Multiplexing (GFDM) system operates in 700 MHz using two adjacent Ultra High Frequency (UHF) TV channels. The landscape in the region of the field trial is predominantly composed of hills. The main goal of the field test was to determine the throughput and coverage that the 5G-RANGE transceiver can achieve under real conditions. The results show that a high data rate can be achieved with low bit error rate (BER) at distances up to 50 km distant from the base station (BS).