We often walk past them without a second glance—towers, masts, and poles that quietly support the vast web of our modern telecommunications networks. But behind these unassuming structures lies a fascinating history and a critical role in enabling everything from phone calls to television broadcasts.
In a brilliant lecture hosted by the IET, Professor Nigel Linge (with support from Professor Andy Sutton) takes us on a journey through the evolution of telecom infrastructure. Starting from ancient beacons and Napoleonic-era semaphores to the iconic BT Tower and long wave radio transmitters, the talk connects the dots across centuries of innovation.
On Friday 28th March I delivered a lecture to #TheIET at Savoy Place in London on the subject of "Telecom Towers, Masts, and Poles". Celebrating one of the visible faces of the telecoms industry. It was recorded by IETtv and can be viewed here: https://t.co/2MULwtRp5xpic.twitter.com/aD4cK7zyZU
The lecture touches on early telegraphy using bare copper wires strung on porcelain insulators, the dawn of voice telephony, Marconi’s pioneering wireless transmissions, and the growth of regional radio and TV broadcasting in the UK. It also highlights how microwave relays and horn-reflector antennas became vital to long-distance communication, with the BT Tower serving as a key hub in the national network.
Whether it’s the humble telegraph pole or the towering masts on hilltops, each structure plays a part in delivering connectivity. This presentation offers a timely reminder of the physical foundations of our digital world—often overlooked, yet essential to our everyday lives.
Watch the full lecture below:
You can also read an article by them detailing many things covered in the lecture here.
I am fascinated by and have previously written blog posts about transparent antennas. Back in 2019 NTT Docomo announced that they have been working with glass manufacturer AGC to create a new transparent antenna that can work with a base station to become an antenna. Then in 2021, NTT Docomo and AGC announced that they have developed a prototype technology that efficiently guides 28-GHz 5G radio signals received from outdoors to specific locations indoors using a film-like metasurface lens that attaches to window surfaces. Transparent antennas/lens are one of the pillars of Docomo’s 6G vision as can be seen here.
I succeeded in my quest to find a wow product finally at #MWC24. Wavethru by AGC is an amazing solution for densification by providing coverage inside-out. Lookout for a post on the Telecoms Infrastructure blog in a few weeks time #3G4G5Gpic.twitter.com/RmuD1NQ7nS
Every year at Mobile World Congress I look for a wow product/demo. While there were some that impressed me, the suite of products from Wave by AGC (WAVEANTENNA, WAVETHRU and WAVETRAP) blew me away. Let’s look at each of them briefly:
WAVEANTENNA is the transparent glass antenna which is generally installed indoors, on a window or a glass pane. It can be used to receive signals from outdoors (as in case of FWA) or can be used to broadcast signal outdoors (for densification based on inside-out coverage). In the newer buildings that has thermal insulation films on the glass, the radio signals are highly attenuated in either direction, so this solution could work well in that scenario in conjunction with WAVETHRU.
The WAVETHRU process applies a unique laser pattern to the glazing with 30 µm laser engraved lines that are nearly invisible to the naked eye. Treatment is so gentle, it does not affect the physical properties of the glazing, which remain the same. This radio-friendly laser treatment improves the indoor radio signal by around 25 dB, to achieve almost the same level of performance as the street signal. Just 20% to 30% of the window and floors 0 to 4 need to be treated to improve the indoor signal on all frequency ranges under 6GHz.
In case of coverage densification by providing inside-out radio signals, WAVETRAP can be used for EM wave shielding by stopping back-lobes within the building.
This video from WAVE by AGC explains the whole densification solution:
Now the question is, why was I impressed with this solution? Regular readers of this and the Telecoms Infrastructure Blog will have noticed the various solutions I have been writing about for mobile network densification in downtown areas and historic cities with listed buildings where limited space for infrastructure deployment presents several challenges.
In brief, we can categorise these challenges as follows:
Physical Space Constraints like lack of space or strict regulations as in case of listed buildings and heritage sites.
Aesthetics and Visual Impact could be an important consideration in certain historic city centres. Deploying large antennae or towers can clash with the architectural character and heritage of the area and may require concealing antennae within existing structures like chimneys, bus shelters, phone boxes & lampposts, or using disguised designs like fake trees to minimize visual impact.
Technical Challenges can arise in dense urban environments due to interference from neighbouring cells, unreliable backhaul connectivity, interruptions in the power supply due to siphoning, etc.
Community Engagement and Perception is another important area to consider. There is no shortage of NIMBY (Not in my back yard) activists that may oppose new infrastructure due to health concerns, aesthetics, or fear of property devaluation. Engaging with the community, providing accurate information about EMF exposure, and addressing misconceptions are crucial.
Regulatory and Permitting Hurdles that may arise due to many cities and councils imposing zoning and permits requirements. Obtaining permits for infrastructure deployment involves navigating local regulations, zoning laws, and historic preservation boards. There may also be height restrictions that may hinder optimal antenna placement.
Finally, Cost and ROI are important consideration factors as all of the above increases the costs as well as the time required. Customized designs, site acquisition, and compliance with regulations are one of the major factors that not only increase costs but also delays infrastructure rollouts. Operators often weigh the benefits of improved coverage and capacity against all the expenses and headaches of infrastructure deployment and then decide on what to deploy and where.
A solution like WAVEANTENNA in conjunction with WAVETHRU and WAVETRAP can significantly reduce the hurdles and improve coverage significantly.
While I have talked about the solution in general, it can also be applied indoors to Wi-Fi, in addition to 4G/5G. This may be useful in case of Enterprise Networks where appearance is of importance and probably not of much use in case of warehouses or Industrial/Factory Networks.
As more technologies, frequency bands, antennas, etc., are crammed in our smartphones and tablets, it becomes essential for these devices to keep performing despite what technologies and spectrum are in use at any instant of time. This requires specialist design of the RF front end in our devices. Wikipedia explains it as:
In a radio receiver circuit, the RF front end, short for radio frequency front end, is a generic term for all the circuitry between a receiver's antenna input up to and including the mixer stage. It consists of all the components in the receiver that process the signal at the original incoming radio frequency (RF), before it is converted to a lower intermediate frequency (IF). In microwave and satellite receivers it is often called the low-noise block downconverter (LNB) and is often located at the antenna, so that the signal from the antenna can be transferred to the rest of the receiver at the more easily handled intermediate frequency.
🔸RFFE revenues should also grow at a rapid clip with proliferation of 5G & 5G mmWave in coming years 🔸 The RF Semi $ content per device will rise and drive the RFFE segment. 🔸 Will be interesting to see if Qualcomm can get more design wins at Apple over next two yr window. pic.twitter.com/9hKrQYpwI4
Qualcomm is very active in this area as can be seen from the chart in the Tweet above. Back in October, Qualcomm announced ultraBAW, their new generation of micro acoustic filter technology that expands their RF front-end (RFFE) portfolio and opens up new 5G services and applications. They have a short intro video explaining RFFE:
Apple bought ~$14 billion worth of baseband, RF front-end (RFFE) and connectivity chips from Broadcom, Qorvo, Qualcomm and Skyworks in 2021.
That means ~$55 worth of baseband + RFFE + connectivity content per iPhone.$AVGO$QCOM$QRVO$SWKS
It is also interesting to see from the Tweet above that on an average baseband + RFFE + connectivity chips cost Apple nearly $55 per device.
The analyst firm CCS Insight have also done some good work explaining RFFE and their analyst Wayne Lam has written a few detailed articles on this topic. Here are the links if you want to read further:
Advances in RF Front-Ends Made 5G Phones Possible (link)
Advances in 5G RF Front-Ends Lead to Longer Battery Life (link)
Their RFFE videos playlist is embedded below.
Also worth noting that a good modem and RF front-end, especially with 5G, can make a lot of difference in what speeds and coverage you can get
Sometimes I forget the value of having a good modem and RF front-end having an S21 Ultra and then I compare my mid-band coverage on @TMobile to people next to me with an iPhone 13 and Pixel 5 and they don't get remotely the same speeds or coverage.
Radio Design, the award-winning market leader in the provision of wireless infrastructure sharing solutions and RF filter systems, hosted a webinar last week focused on the deployment of the 700 MHz frequency band. This new 700 MHz spectrum is in great demand across the world, mainly due to its long anticipated use as low band 5G spectrum. The webinar explores the potential of this band, as well as how to prepare for potential challenges when deploying.
For people who are familiar with our trainings, we divide the spectrum into three layers, the coverage layer, the capacity layer and the high-throughput layer. 700 MHz is the most popular coverage layer spectrum worldwide.
The slide above from the webinar talks of the recent Austrian 5G Spectrum auction that we blogged about. See tweet below for details
In the webinar, slides and video embedded below, Radio Design’s founder – Eric Hawthorn – kicks things off by analysing the benefits of deploying the 700 MHz band in the real world, before passing over to Global Engineering Director – Steve Shaw – who explores some of the technical problems which can arise, as well as some of the solutions. Last but not least, COO and co-owner of Keima – Iris Barcia – provides her insight into the benefits of deploying the 700 MHz band.
I wrote about "Distributed Massive MIMO using Ericsson Radio Stripes" after MWC 2019 here. I found it a very interesting concept and it will certainly take a few years before it becomes a reality.
Emil Björnson, Associate Professor at Linköping University have produced couple of videos on this topic. I am embedding both of them below for anyone who may be interested.
"A New Look at Cell-Free Massive MIMO" - based on technical paper from PIMRC 2019 on how to design Cell-free Massive MIMO systems that are both scalable and achieve high performance.
Worth noting the following about this video (based on video comments):
There are some minor issues with the sudio
Cell-free Massive MIMO is particularly for stadiums, streets, and places with many users or where it is hard to provide sufficient network quality with other methods.
This concept is still 4-5 years away from being ready to be practically deployed. It should be ready for later part of 5G, probably 5.5G
"Reinventing the Wireless Network Architecture Towards 6G: Cell-free Massive MIMO and Radio Stripes" looks at the motivation behind Cell-free Massive MIMO and how it can be implemented in 6G using radio stripes.
Worth noting the following on this video (based on video comments):
It may be possible that multiple frequency bands can be handled in the same radio stripe. If it is found to be possible then every other antenna processing unit could manage a different band.
In principle, you can make the stripe as long as you need. But you probably need to divide it into segments since the power is supplied from one end of a stripe and it will only reach a limited distance (roughly up to 1 km). There are many implementation ideas and it remains to be seen what works out well in practice.
I am looking forward to see it work as it can solve coverage issues in many tricky scenarios.
CW (Cambridge Wireless) held a couple of very interesting events from 2 very popular groups.
The first one was on "5G wide area coverage: macro cells – the why and the how". This event looked at the design and optimisation of the macro cell layer and its role within future heterogeneous networks. You can access the presentations for limited time on CW website here.
The second one was on "Commercialising millimetre-wave technology". The event reviewed the commercial opportunities at millimetre-wave frequencies, what bands are available and what licensing is needed. You can access the presentations on CW website for limited time here.
I hosted a webinar for Parallel Wireless* yesterday about all the stuff related to 5G at Mobile World Congress 2019. The slides are embedded below and can be downloaded from BrightTalk here. You can also listen to the webinar there.
*Full Disclosure: I work for Parallel Wireless as a Senior Director in Strategic Marketing. This blog is maintained in my personal capacity and expresses my own views, not the views of my employer or anyone else. Anyone who knows me well would know this.
One of the interesting things that caught my attention in MWC 2019 was the Ericsson Radio Stripes.
Emil Björnson explains it nicely in his blog as to how this works.
Distributed MIMO deployments combine the best of two worlds: The beamforming gain and spatial interference suppression capability of conventional Massive MIMO with co-located arrays, and the bigger chance of being physically close to a service antenna that small cells offer. Coherent transmission and reception from a distributed MIMO array is not a new concept but has been given many names over the years, including Distributed Antenna System and Network MIMO. Most recently, in the beyond-5G era, it has been called ubiquitous Cell-free Massive MIMO communications and been refined based on insights and methodology developed through the research into conventional Massive MIMO. One of the showstoppers for distributed MIMO has always been the high cost of deploying a large number of distributed antennas. Since the antennas need to be phase-synchronized and have access to the same data, a lot of high-capacity cables need to be deployed, particularly if a star topology is used. ... For those who cannot attend MWC, further conceptual details can be found in a recent overview paper on Cell-free Massive MIMO. An even more detailed description of radio stripes can be found in Ericsson’s patent application from 2017.
The paper explains the Radio stripe system design and also lists the advantages of such a system:
The radio stripe system facilitates a flexible and cheap cell-free Massive MIMO deployment. Cheapness comes from many aspects: (i) deployment does not require highly qualified personnel. Theoretically, a radio stripe needs only one (plug and play) connection either to the front-haul network or directly to the CPU; (ii) a conventional distributed massive MIMO deployment requires a star topology, i.e., a separate cable between each APs and a CPU, which may be economically infeasible. Conversely, radio stripe installation complexity is unaffected by the number of antenna elements, thanks to its compute-and-forward architecture. Hence, cabling becomes much cheaper; (iii) maintenance costs are cut down as a radio stripe system offers increased robustness and resilience: highly distributed functionality offer limited overall impact on the network when few stripes being defected; (iv) low heat-dissipation makes cooling systems simpler and cheaper. While cellular APs are bulky, radio stripes enable invisible installation in existing construction elements as exemplified in Fig. below. Moreover, a radio stripe deployment may integrate for example temperature sensors, microphones/speakers, or vibration sensors, and provide additional features such as fire alarms, burglar alarms, earthquake warning, indoor positioning, and climate monitoring and control.
One of the inventors and researchers behind the concept, Jan Hederén, Strategist at Ericsson 4G5G Development, says: "Although a large-scale installation of distributed MIMO can provide excellent performance, it can also become an impractical and costly "spaghetti-monster" of cables in case dedicated cables are used to connect the antenna elements. To be easy to deploy, we need to connect and integrate the antenna elements inside a single cable. We call this solution the "radio stripe" which is an easy way to create a large scale distributed, serial, and integrated antenna system." Says, also inventors and researcher behind the concept." This visionary concept is an extension of how to build and enhance the capability of current networks. The Radio Stripe systems offers, so to say, new colors and flavors in how we increase the performance of mobile networks. The Radio Stripe vision is focused on improvements to the reach and quality of radio connectivity in the access part of the mobile network. It shares all other resources (transport, baseband, management, core) with current mobile solutions.
I am looking forward to reading a lot more about this kind of approach in the future and probably some deployment videos too.
I first mentioned Quintel in this blog three years back for their innovations in 4T8R/8T8R antennas. Since then they have been going strength to strength.
I heard David Barker, CTO of Quintel at Cambridge Wireless event titled "Radio technology for 5G – making it work" talking about the antennas consideration for 5G. There are quite a few important areas in this presentation for consideration. The presentation is embedded below:
A recent AT&T blog post looks at how the fake cactus antennas are manufactured. I also took a closeup of a fake cactus antenna when I went to a Cambridge Wireless Heritage SIG event as can be seen in tweet below.
To make a stealth site look as real as possible, our teams use several layers of putty and paint. Our goal is to get the texture and color just right, but also ensure it can withstand natural elements – from snowy Colorado to blistering Arizona.
Tower production takes 6-8 weeks and starts with constructing a particular mold. The molds quickly become 30-foot tall saguaro cacti or 80-foot tall redwood trees.But these aren’t just steel giants.
The materials that cover the stealth antennas, like paint or faux-leaves, must be radio frequency-friendly. Stealth antennas designed to look like church steeples or water towers are mostly made of fiberglass. This lets the signal from the antennas penetrate through the casing.
These stealth deployments are just one of the many unique ways we provide coverage to our customers. So take a look outside, your connection may be closer than you think—hidden in plain sight!
This videos gives a good idea
If this is a topic of interest, then have a look at this collection of around 100 antennas:
The other being #EEGoldenSIM competition started by Marc Allera, CEO of UK mobile operator, EE,. The users were required to find a mast, take a picture and share it. This led to a lot of people asking how do masts look like but also generated lots of interesting pictures. You can search #EEGoldenSIM on twitter to see them.
Below is a presentation prepared by my 3G4G colleagues on how different types of antennas and mobile masts look like. Hope you like it.
The summary offers insight to the future of wireless broadband and how new requirements and technological goals will be achieved. The report updates Release 13 (Rel-13) features that are now completed at 3GPP and were not available at the time of the publication of a detailed 5G Americas report, Mobile Broadband Evolution Towards 5G: 3GPP Release 12 & Release 13 andBeyond in June 2015.
The 3GPP standards have many innovations remaining for LTE to create a foundation for 5G. Rel-12, which was finalized in December 2014, contains a vast array of features for both LTE and HSPA+ that bring greater efficiency for networks and devices, as well as enable new applications and services. Many of the Rel-12 features were extended into Rel-13. Rel-13, functionally frozen in December 2015 and completed in March 2016, continues to build on these technical capabilities while adding many robust new features.
Jim Seymour, Principal Engineer, Mobility CTO Group, Cisco and co-leader of the 5G Americas report explained, “3GPP Release 13 is just a peek behind the curtain for the unveiling of future innovations for LTE that will parallel the technical work at 3GPP on 5G. Both LTE and 5G will work together to form our connected future.”
The numerous features in the Rel-13 standards include the following for LTE-Advanced:
Active Antenna Systems (AAS), including beamforming, Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) and Self-Organizing Network (SON) aspects
Enhanced signaling to support inter-site Coordinated Multi-Point Transmission and Reception (CoMP)
Carrier Aggregation (CA) enhancements to support up to 32 component carriers
Dual Connectivity (DC) enhancements to better support multi-vendor deployments with improved traffic steering
Improvements in Radio Access Network (RAN) sharing
Enhancements to Machine Type Communication (MTC)
Enhanced Proximity Services (ProSe)
Some of the standards work in Rel-13 related to spectrum efficiency include:
Licensed Assisted Access for LTE (LAA) in which LTE can be deployed in unlicensed spectrum
LTE Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) Aggregation (LWA) where Wi-Fi can now be supported by a radio bearer and aggregated with an LTE radio bearer
Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) where lower power wider coverage LTE carriers have been designed to support IoT applications
Downlink (DL) Multi-User Superposition Transmission (MUST) which is a new concept for transmitting more than one data layer to multiple users without time, frequency or spatial separation
“The vision for 5G is being clarified in each step of the 3GPP standards. To understand those steps, 5G Americas provides reports on the developments in this succinct, understandable format,” said Vicki Livingston, Head of Communications for the association.
I came across this simple Introduction to Antenna Design videos that many will find useful (including myself) for the basics of Antenna. Its embedded below:
In the recently concluded 5G World 2016, Maximilian Göttl, Senior Director, Research & Development, Mobile Communication Systems, Kathrein gave an interesting presentation on Antenna Evolution, from 4G to 5G. The presentation is embedded below.
Please share your thoughts in this area in the comments section below.
When I did a blog post 'Disguising Small Cells in Rural areas' last year, many people were surprised to see these things. So here is another post showing how the antennas looks like and how they have to be disguised to blend in with the environment.
The above pictures shows fake date trees (with dates) near Koutoubia mosque, Marrakech, designed to blend in with the surroundings. In fact I have been told that these fake date trees are common in the Middle East and North African countries.
The above picture is from Dubai, showing similar palm tree. Source unknown.
The above picture, courtesy of Andy Sutton on Twitter shows a cell site near Blandford Forum. I hope you can spot the fake tree on top right.
Another one, courtesy of Andy Sutton on Twitter shows a cell site between motorway M56, J10 & 11 in Cheshire. Single operator but could be shared, single frequency band, x-pole with 3 cell sectors. Only two of the possible 3 cell sectors connected here. Pointing up and down motorway hence 4 feeders.
All three are fake trees and each is a separate cellular installation. The location is Lancashire, off the A6 between Slyne and Bolton-le-Sands. They are all different operators, left to right, O2, T-Mobile, Orange - although two will become one as part of EE of course.
Modern Art and Cellular Antenna, courtesy of Andy Sutton on Twitter.
What will happen when we transition to 5G, where we will have a lot more antennas because of MIMO (massive or not). China Mobile is researching into Smart Tiles, which are antennas that can be hidden inside Chinese characters. See the following for example:
With more antennas becoming commonplace in the urban environment, operators and vendors will have to keep up coming with innovative ways to disguise the antennas and hope no one notices.
People often ask at various conferences if TD-LTE is a fad or is it something that will continue to exist along with the FDD networks. TDD networks were a bit tricky to implement in the past due to the necessity for the whole network to be time synchronised to make sure there is no interference. Also, if there was another TDD network in an adjacent band, it would have to be time synchronised with the first network too. In the areas bordering another country where they might have had their own TDD network in this band, it would have to be time synchronised too. This complexity meant that most networks were happy to live with FDD networks.
In 5G networks, at higher frequencies it would also make much more sense to use TDD to estimate the channel accurately. This is because the same channel would be used in downlink and uplink so the downlink channel can be estimated accurately based on the uplink channel condition. Due to small transmit time intervals (TTI's), these channel condition estimation would be quite good. Another advantage of this is that the beam could be formed and directed exactly at the user and it would appear as a null to other users.
This is where 8T8R or 8 Transmit and 8 Receive antennas in the base station can help. The more the antennas, the better and narrower the beam they can create. This can help send more energy to users at the cell edge and hence provide better and more reliable coverage there.
How do these antennas look like? 8T8R needs 8x Antennas at the Base Station Cell, and this is typically delivered using four X-Polar columns about half wavelength apart. I found the above picture on antenna specialist Quintel's page here, where the four column example is shown right. At spectrum bands such as 2.3GHz, 2.6GHz and 3.5GHz where TD-LTE networks are currently deployed, the antenna width is still practical. Quintel’s webpage also indicates how their technology allows 8T8R to be effectively emulated using only two X-Polar columns thus promising Slimline antenna solutions at lower frequency bands. China Mobile and Huawei have claimed to be the first ones to deploy these four X-Pol column 8T8R antennas. Sprint, USA is another network that has been actively deploying these 8T8R antennas.
There are couple of interesting tweets that show their kit below:
Sprint's John Saw showing of TD-LTE 8T8R and Network Vision. Room for expansion. pic.twitter.com/Mydzasg3F6
Sprint's deployment of 8T8R (eight-branch transmit and eight-branch receive) radios in its 2.5 GHz TDD LTE spectrum is resulting in increased data throughput as well as coverage according to a new report from Signals Research. "Thanks to TM8 [transmission mode 8] and 8T8R, we observed meaningful increases in coverage and spectral efficiency, not to mention overall device throughput," Signals said in its executive summary of the report. The firm said it extensively tested Sprint's network in the Chicago market using Band 41 (2.5 GHz) and Band 25 (1.9 GHz) in April using Accuver's drive test tools and two Galaxy Note Edge smartphones. Signals tested TM8 vs. non-TM8 performance, Band 41 and Band 25 coverage and performance as well as 8T8R receive vs. 2T2R coverage/performance and stand-alone carrier aggregation. Sprint has been deploying 8T8R radios in its 2.5 GHz footprint, which the company has said will allow its cell sites to send multiple data streams, achieve better signal strength and increase data throughput and coverage without requiring more bandwidth. The company also has said it will use carrier aggregation technology to combine TD-LTE and FDD-LTE transmission across all of its spectrum bands. In its fourth quarter 2014 earnings call with investors in February, Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure said implementing carrier aggregation across all Sprint spectrum bands means Sprint eventually will be able to deploy 1900 MHz FDD-LTE for uplink and 2.5 GHz TD-LTE for downlink, and ultimately improve the coverage of 2.5 GHz LTE to levels that its 1900 MHz spectrum currently achieves. Carrier aggregation, which is the most well-known and widely used technique of the LTE Advanced standard, bonds together disparate bands of spectrum to create wider channels and produce more capacity and faster speeds.
Alcatel-Lucent has a good article in their TECHzine, an extract from that below:
Field tests on base stations equipped with beamforming and 8T8R technologies confirm the sustainability of the solution. Operators can make the most of transmission (Tx) and receiving (Rx) diversity by adding in Tx and Rx paths at the eNodeB level, and beamforming delivers a direct impact on uplink and downlink performance at the cell edge. By using 8 receiver paths instead of 2, cell range is increased by a factor of 1.5 – and this difference is emphasized by the fact that the number of sites needed is reduced by nearly 50 per cent. Furthermore, using the beamforming approach in transmission mode generates a specific beam per user which improves the quality of the signal received by the end-user’s device, or user equipment (UE). In fact, steering the radiated energy in a specific direction can reduce interference and improves the radio link, helping enable a better throughput. The orientation of the beam is decided by shifting the phases of the Tx paths based on signal feedback from the UE. This approach can deliver double the cell edge downlink throughput and can increase global average throughput by 65 per cent. These types of deployments are made possible by using innovative radio heads and antenna solutions. In traditional deployments, it would require the installation of multiple remote radio heads (RRH) and multiple antennas at the site to reach the same level of performance. The use of an 8T8R RRH and a smart antenna array, comprising 4 cross-polar antennas in a radome, means an 8T8R sector deployment can be done within the same footprint as traditional systems.
Anyone interested in seeing pictures of different 8T8R antennas like the one above, see here. While this page shows Samsung's antennas, you can navigate to equipment from other vendors.
Finally, if you can provide any additional info or feel there is something incorrect, please feel free to let me know via comments below.
I had the pleasure of speaking at the CW (Cambridge Wireless) event ‘5G: A Practical Approach’. It was a very interesting event with great speakers. Over the next few weeks, I will hopefully add the presentations from some of the other speakers too.
In fact before the presentation (below), I had a few discussions over the twitter to validate if people agree with my assumptions. For those who use twitter, maybe you may want to have a look at some of these below:
There were couple of very interesting and useful presentations from the LTE World Summit 2014 that I have been thinking for a while to embed in the blog. The first is a market overview from Signals Research Group. The research is focussed more on the US market but it has some very interesting insights. The slideset is embedded below:
The other presentation is from Commscope on Base Station Antennas (BSA) for capacity improvement. I really liked the simplicity of the diagrams. Anyone interested in studying more indepth on the antennas are encouraged to check out my old post here. The complete slideset is below:
