Sectors, Beams and Environmental Impact on Commercial 5G mmWave Cell Coverage: an Empirical Study

This paper presents the results of a measurement campaign to investigate and analyze the performance of a 5G mmWave cell. We evaluate the signal and beam coverage map of an operational network, considering various scenarios, including human body blockage effects, foliage-caused and rain-induced attenuation, and water surface effects. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to report on a commercial deployment while not treating the radio as a black box. This measurement analysis provides useful information for researchers and 5G verticals to fully understand and appropriately model the mmWave signals propagation in a real-world and operational deployment.