Capacity And Coverage Performance Scaling In Outdoor Dense Millimeter Wave Access Networks

Millimeter wave (mmWave) communication is a key enabler for realizing the data rates, capacity and latency requirements envisioned for emerging 5G systems. This paper addresses the system performance of 73 GHz mmWave access, which is representative of the systems expected to be standardized in the second phase of 3GPP specifications. In particular, we address the performance scalability of mmWave systems and characterize the tradeoffs and challenges involved in improving their coverage and capacity for different cell density regimes. Our results, based on industry standard 3GPP methodology, show that the directional communication enabled through massive MIMO capability of mmWave systems, is key towards addressing the interference limitation on performance scaling, thus illustrating the promise of mmWave communication to provide a scalable solution capable of handling the needs of future ultra-dense networks.