Path Loss Analysis for 3G Mobile Networks for Urban and Rural Regions of Mauritius

In view of designing any mobile network system, the fundamental task is to predict the coverage of the proposed system. A wide variety of approaches have been developed over the years to predict coverage using what are known as propagation models. In this paper, we compare the measured path loss obtained for the sub-urban areas with that for the rural areas and then with four propagation models, that is, Clutter, Lee, Okumura-Hata and Extended COST-231. Firstly, for both areas, the results show that the path loss is not constant at various locations for a constant distance around the respective base transceiver station (BTS) showing that the terrain of Mauritius is irregular. The effects of multipath are more pronounced in the rural than causing higher probability of signal errors. Secondly, we find that Lee model is not in agreement with the values obtained for both regions. Observations show that the Clutter model gives better agreement for rural regions. However, observations show that the Okumura-Hata gives better agreement for all rural, suburban and urban regions, hence, it can be used to model any region in Mauritius.