What to do when ducting degrades all the KPIs?

[justdream]

Experts,

What to do when ducting degrades all the KPIs? We are facing this ducting phenomena and it is degrading all of our KPIs, it would be great if we could discuss it and learn from each other's experience..

Hint: this phenomena occurs in Summers (when temperature be high "hot")
affecting our GSM band

please share knowledge :hug:

[zakiuddin]

sorry, i pasted something on countering ducting in microwave environment.. but then i read again and realized that you want it against some GSM band... so i've edited the post... sorry again.

[justdream]

hey experts, where are you?

[justdream]

please shaaaaaaare

[Femto_Engineer]

Hmm,

Thats strange. Are you sure, its ducting effect? Cause ducting effect is quite often experienced in the Microwave bands and you are talking about GSM frequency band. Are you considering P2P link?

[adewijaya]

During tropospheric ducting, the signal is trapped inside of an atmospheric signal duct (waveguide) that bounces the signal through the atmosphere to locations past 60 miles. The end result is that radio waves will propagate well beyond their intended service area with less than normal attenuation. This effect has been observed most often in the frequency ranges from 450 MHz down to 100 MHz (TV signals), but it can generally happen in the UHF frequency ranges up to 3GHz. In fact the author has observed the ducting effect at 900 MHz through his work on GSM in certain parts of Asia, where signals were received in the –80 dBm ranges over NLOS distances from high altitude GSM sites located 20–30 km away in rural areas. Under normal conditions, the signal that is not blocked or obstructed simply travels in a straight line out into space, never to return to earth. However, the ducting effect causes the normal path of the signals to be bent downward, returning the signal to the surface of the earth and at great distances from its point of origin with unexpected power levels. The reader may refer to References 23 and 24 for terrestrial signal strength measurements in the 30 MHz–3 GHz range and to Reference 25 for measurements of tropospheric ducting effects on radio paths over the sea at 2 GHz. Ducting and the anomalous radio propagation effect can occur at most latitudes but they are more common in tropical climates usually associated with high pressure areas (anticyclones).
The ducting effect is something that is exploited by amateur radio enthusiasts to achieve communications over abnormally long distances for the frequencies used. This effect can not be exploited reliably for commercial communication services because the conditions can form and disperse in minutes. Furthermore, it can cause interference well outside of the normal service area. Ducting can result in troublesome communication on GSM networks by enhancing co-channel and adjacent channel interferences from far sites, particularly ones that are at elevated heights and with little down-tilting to provide large coverage in rural
areas. Therefore a simple solution around ducting is to increase the number of sites by reducing antenna heights and providing sufficient down-tilting to avoid bouncing the signal into the atmosphere. The new handset technology based on interference rejection cancellation can also help to mitigate

Ref : UMTS Network Planning Optimization and Inter-Operation with GSM (see LIBRARY)