Empirical Analysis of the Impact of LTE Downlink Channel Indicators on the Uplink Connectivity

Abstract

Many vehicular applications can be enabled of cellular communication networks like Long-Term Evolution (LTE). To guarantee a resource-efficient communication, the evaluation of the channel quality in the device is an important research topic in order to consider the channel quality for data transmission decisions. In this paper, the correlation between downlink channel quality indicators that are evaluated in the device and the uplink system performance is analyzed. For this purpose, theoretical analyses and field measurements in a dedicated LTE network as well as in a public LTE development are provided. The results show that the Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) is suitable indicator for very good uplink connectivity situations and that the connectivity at the cell edge can be identified by the Reference Signal Received Quality (RSRQ).