30-second and one-minute rainfall rate modelling and conversion for millimetric wave propagation in South Africa

The knowledge of adequate rainfall statistics will contribute greatly to the roll-out of emerging wireless technologies on the platform of Long-Term Evolution (LTE) and WiMax (IEEE 802.16). Therefore, it is important that rainfall measurements at shorter integration time are incorporated as useful inputs in the planning of Line-of-Sight (LOS) microwave and millimetre communication links for hosting these technologies. As compared to the use of one-minute rainfall data as suggested by International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the equivalent data measured at 30-second interval gives more information of temporal rain rates in the time domain. Therefore, in this study, rainfall rate measurements of 5-minute integration time representative of 10 locations in South Africa are evaluated to obtain their cumulative distributions. Results from these analyses are compared with rainfall data of one-minute and 30-second integration time data obtained over Durban (29°52′E, 30°55′S), South Africa. Consequently, rainfall rate models for conversion to one-minute and 30-second integration times were obtained over 10 locations in South Africa using the power-law regression functions. Our results obtained over these locations were used to estimate specific attenuation values in selected microwave and millimetric wave bands at 12 GHz, 30 GHz and 60 GHz for 10 locations under study. It is confirmed that the 30-second integration time provides more information needed for estimation of specific attenuation on microwave and millimeter-wave radio links in South Africa.