Performance Evaluation of Radio Propagation Models on GSM Network in Urban Area of Lagos, Nigeria

The analysis of radio propagation in urban terrains became highly imperative owing to the fact that the environment is composed of different physical obstructions such as high-rise buildings, towers and bill boards situated on a grid-like pattern of streets. Radio propagation characteristics, to a large extent, vary from one type of environment to the other. In this paper, the suitability of three of the available empirical propagation modelsOkumura – Hata model; COST 231 – Hata model and Standard Propagation Modelfor radio coverage predictions in the dense suburban and dense urban clutter classes of Lagos metropolis was investigated. A drive test was conducted to obtain the actual field data on the GSM 1800 network deployed in the area under study. All prediction calculations were carried out in the ATOLL network planning tool. From the field measured data, mean path loss values of 137.53 dB and 142.49 dB were recorded in the dense suburban and dense urban areas respectively. COST 231 – Hata model prediction results had the greatest proximity to what was obtained on the live network with a root mean square error value of 12.28 dB and a standard deviation of 6.42 dB for the dense suburban clutter. In the dense urban area, the model also yielded the minimum root mean square error and standard deviation values of 11.82 dB and 7.88 dB respectively. Therefore, COST 231 – Hata model was found most suitable for GSM 1800 network planning and deployment in the urban environment of Lagos, Nigeria.