14 Jun 2012

Active antennas ease LTE roll-out, claims Ubidyne

Ubidyne, developer of dynamic digital active antenna technology for wireless communications, has published a White Paper ‘LTE implementation into an Existing GSM 1800 Network Using Active Antenna Systems'.

With the increasing move to introduce LTE into existing GSM networks, particularly in the 1800MHz band 3, Active Antenna Systems (AAS) allow operators to optimise their networks for both standards and deliver major CAPEX and OPEX savings, claims Ubidyne.

Unlike conventional fixed passive antennas, AAS solutions have features such as tilt-per-standard/carrier that enable completely separate tilts for each standard or carrier transmitted and received with the antenna.

This, says the company, means operators need to upgrade 24% fewer sites to roll out LTE or can deliver a higher network capacity by upgrading all sites, compared to a network using only passive antennas.

“Due to the very different characteristics of LTE and GSM, operators face major network roll out and optimisation issues if they have to deliver both services on their existing GSM sites,” said Michael Fränkle, CEO of Ubidyne. “Less LTE upgrades in the initial roll-out phase mean lower up-front investment, as well as lower operating expenses because of reduced maintenance and power requirements; and once capacity demand for LTE increases, the remaining GSM-only sites can be upgraded to provide higher capacity for customers."

"Because this multi-standard feature has only been available with the advent of AAS, it is still often overlooked when planning a network upgrade,” he added.

Higher gain can also be achieved by additional features including vertical sectorisation that creates separate inner and outer cells if users are grouped towards the cell center and cell edge; as well as separate Rx/Tx tilt so that receive and transmit beams can be shaped and tilted independently to reduce interference with neighboring cells, for example.

According to Ubidyne, a self-healing capability also provides built-in redundancy by being able to dynamically compensate if one or more transceiver elements fail, thus expending the antenna’s MTBF and reducing OPEX costs for the operator.

As the company highlights, these benefits were clearly demonstrated in recent US trials with a leading Tier 1 operator where Ubidyne’s 700MHz Active Antenna Embedded Radio technology delivered double throughput at the cell edge and an increase of over 40% cell capacity with the same output power.

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