Antenna system boosts wireless network site capacity
The Six Sector Solution, part of the Andrew portfolio of wireless solutions, utilizes advanced antenna technology that can make site acquisition and installation easier by enabling the use of three antennas where six were previously needed. Implementation of the Six Sector Solution provides almost twice the capacity, increases the gain of each sector by 3 dB for better building penetration and mitigates interference for higher data throughput.
“The massive increase in subscriber demand for mobile data is driving a major concern among wireless operators about having enough capacity to handle the traffic,” said CommScope’s Philip Sorrells, vice president of strategic marketing, Wireless. “The Six Sector Solution is an excellent way to significantly increase capacity by enabling the evolution of a traditional three sector site to a higher capacity, six sector site with the use of only three antennas.”
The Six Sector Solution is the latest Andrew offering to address the concept of sector sculpting, a creative approach to antenna pattern shaping that carves out more capacity, improves coverage and limits interference. Sector sculpting boosts network performance by better controlling interference between sectors and increasing the number of accessible subscriber channels. These sector sculpting antennas, such as in the Six Sector Solution, can radiate multiple, tightly defined RF patterns from one antenna unit. Other Andrew sector sculpting offerings include the Five Beam, 18-Beam, UltraBand™ and SmartBeam® base station antennas. In addition, the Andrew Sentinel™ microwave backhaul antenna uses a similar pattern shaping approach to boost capacity between microwave links.
“In an era of limited spectrum and constantly increasing demands for bandwidth, CommScope strongly advocates the concept of sector sculpting as an effective way for operators to efficiently improve performance at their cell sites,” said Sorrells.
The Six Sector Solution utilizes twin beam base station antennas as the primary enabling technology for sector-splitting with three antennas. Twin beam antennas generate two RF beams from one antenna meaning three antennas can do the work of six, saving on tower leasing costs and decreasing wind loading. By increasing the gain in each sector by 3 dB, twin beam antennas nearly double the signal power, which means better building penetration. The higher gain also enables higher data rates so that customers may be able to stream high-definition videos, for example, where previously they could only stream low quality video. Twin beam antenna technology is now available in most frequency bands for GSM, CDMA, UMTS and LTE.
“We believe that increasing network capacity with a relatively simple antenna system upgrade is a great near term investment,” said Sorrells. “Our solution provides a practical way to quickly deploy sector-splitting without additional antenna faces.”
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