Abstract — A new design for single feed, WLL micro strip antenna is presented and experimentally studied. The antenna is 10.3mm × 17.2mm size, radiates an end fire beam and operates on the (3.4-3.6 GHZ) standard WLL - rural application - band. The antenna gain is better than 4.96dbi. I. I NTRODUCTION Rural markets have traditionally been served by fixed wireless access (FWA) systems such as point to multipoint (PMP) radio, which is generally considered a quick and economical way to implement communications infrastructures that link these areas to the rest of the word. FWA is specifically designed to deliver quality, cost- effective services in low density and scattered rural areas. Global system for mobile communication (GSM) remains the world’s leading mobile communications technology. Recently, equipment vendors have encouraged GSM operators to use fixed GSM (FGSM) technology to deliver basic telephone service to low and medium density rural areas that are not served by landline networks . Although FGSM may appear to present opportunities for attracting new subscribers by leveraging existing GSM infrastructures, in reality, the advantages this technology provides are limited to the high density and often narrow corridors already covered by mobile networks. Extending such networks into the country side in low density regions is not necessarily a cost effective solution as the per-subscriber cost of delivering basic telephony substantially increases. Given the uncertainties of FGSM’s evolutionary path, and indeed the lack of Support for a cost- effective solution for delivering toll-quality voice and functional Internet access to low-density areas, network planners did carefully consider Manuscript received November 20, 2005. This work was supported in part by the EMI, Laboratoire De Recherche Eléchtronique ET System De Telecommunications, Rabat, Morocco. By Antennes ET Hyperfréquences, Institut d’Electronique ET de Télécommunications De Rennes, Rennes France as a second part, and by the INPT, Propagation Micro-ondes et optiques as a third one. S. Lebbar is the main author of this article. She was with the Electrical Departement of FIT, FL, USA and is now within the EMI, Rabat, Morocco, where she is preparing a PHD, in the Laboratoire De Recherche Elechtronique Et System De Télécommunications, Rabat, Morocco. (e- mail.: [email protected]) Z. Guennoun, is within the Department of Electrical engineering, in the EMI, Rabat, Morocco. M. Drissi. is the co-director of antenne et hyperfrequences, Intitut d’electronique et de telecommunication de rennes, Renne, France. He is with the Electrical Engineering Department, INSA engineering School, France. F. Riouch is within the INPT, Rabat, Morocco. the use of wireless local loop (WLL), called also radio in the loop(RITL), or fixed radio excess. Wireless local loop (WLL), sometimes called, radio in the loop, or fixed-radio access (FRA), uses public switched telephone Network (PSTN) to connect subscribers using radio signal instead of copper wire for all or part of the connection. In rural telephony WLL uses the 3.4 -3.6 frequency band. Micro strip antennas are small structures, used in external public switched network (PSTN), to collect or radiate electromagnetic wave. Most people require an antenna that can stand up to daily abuse and still keep reception when connected to the network. (3.4 -3.6 GHz) is the frequency band used in the WLL technology. In this article, we will report a new one band micro strip antenna structure working on the WLL band, the antenna is aimed to work in the (3.4-3.6 GHz) band. The compactness of this antenna was our huge premium. And this is especially true when the designed antenna, needs to fit the conditions of having the needed gain. Furthermore, it was very difficult to achieve the required polarization performance, besides all these challenges, the requirement of significant bandwidth. All of these factors make this antenna design and development a daunting task and some practical engineering compromises needed to be made. II. COMPACT MICROSTRIP ANTENNA DESIGN Microstrip antenna can be designed using couple of methods, the most straight forward one has been finding the antenna width and length for specific i) resonant frequency, ii) substrate permittivity, and iii) substrate height. The formulas used in the rectangular forms have been successively: ( ) 2 1 2 0 2 + = r f C L ε (1) 2 / 1 2 12 1 2 1 2 1 − + − + + = L h r r reff ε ε ε (2) Wire less Local Loop (WLL) Microstrip Antenna Rural Application S. LEBBAR, Z. GUENNOUN, M. DRISSI, F. RIOUCH R