Investigation of Signal Penetration Loss Variation on Different Building Components and Disparity of Receiver Location on 3G/4G Network in the Context of Bangladesh

In most cases, the cellphone signal level is found weak inside a building than outside due to signal dropping caused by penetration. Because of penetration loss, the indoor cellular network signal shows poor performance, and imperfect reception occurs. Penetration loss is influenced by the building material types used in construction, the building structure, and orientation. In this work, the penetration loss was measured subject to construction materials and different network bands, i.e. UMTS and LTE on 3G and 4G network. The measurements were taken from a multi-storied building and a multi-storied mud house located in a rural area in Chattogram district of Bangladesh. This work was done in respect of Bangladesh, where most of the areas are rural; therefore, the rural area was taken as standard. Android mobile with an installed application named "Network Signal Info" and LTE/4G/3G network supported SIM of a primary cellular network service provider in Bangladesh named 'Robi Axiata' was used to measure the data. Penetration loss fluctuation on the variation of the receiver height (floor to floor) and the Base station (BS)-Rx distance (room to room) was accounted as evaluation metrics to measure and study the signal strength performance. It is observed from the resultant data that; the increment of receiver height reduces the penetration loss where the increment of BS-Rx distance exacerbates this loss. By comparison, it is also found that penetration loss is always higher in 4G networks than 3G network band from all aspects. Besides, the mud constructed house gives higher penetration loss compared to the brick constructed building for each parameter.