A three-sector macro site carrying LTE Band 12 (700 MHz), LTE Band 2 (1900 MHz), and 5G NR n77 C-band (3.7 GHz) Massive MIMO — two full worked coverage-radius calculations run side by side to show, in numbers, why carriers layer bands rather than build on one alone.
The project brief: a 45 m monopole with tower-top RRUs and a 64T64R Massive MIMO Active Antenna System per sector, a ground shelter housing the baseband unit and DC power plant, fiber-primary backhaul with a licensed-microwave diverse path, and a power/battery/generator design sized against a real equipment load. Every equipment choice — from RRU placement to antenna downtilt — is made to close two specific link budgets, not just to look reasonable on a spec sheet.
This module walks the whole project end to end: equipment architecture and why the broadcast-beam EIRP (not the flattering beamformed figure) governs coverage planning, a full worked Okumura-Hata link budget for the 700 MHz coverage layer, a full worked 3GPP UMa link budget for the C-band capacity layer, the site-planning tradeoff those two radii create for coverage-driven vs. capacity-driven grid spacing, backhaul, and a power/grounding/battery-backup design built around a real equipment power budget. The full worked numbers and complete bill of materials are part of the unlocked module below.