Ubidyne and CommScope in active antenna trial

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Ubidyne and CommScope in active antenna trial

Claim 40% increase in cell capacity in tests with a US LTE operator in the 700MHz band

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 23 January, 2012

READ MORE: Spectrum | US | CommScope | Testing/Certification | LTE

Active antennas are poised to play a critical role in LTE deployments, supporting greater capacity and coverage, more flexible use of spectrum bands, and power efficiency. One of the world's first major field trials, with an unnamed US operator in the 700MHz band, claims to have achieved a 40% increase in cell capacity.

The multisite trial was conducted by partners CommScope and Ubidyne and completed in late 2011. The obvious candidate to have backed the test was Verizon Wireless, the most advanced deployer of 700MHz LTE, and a cellco which has expressed interest in active antenna technology in the past.

Operators and macro-base station vendors are pinning hopes on active antennas to maximize the use of their existing spectrum and cells, before they need to harness additional bands or deploy secondary layers of small cells to meet rising data capacity demands. Michael Frankle, CEO of Ubidyne, said in a statement: "This successful independent verification shows that operators can now get maximum coverage and capacity from their macrocells using active antenna technology before investing in costly small cells."

Ubidyne's uB700 Active Embedded Radio supports techniques such as beamforming and tilting vertical sectorization to increase data bandwidth at the cell edge by up to 200%, and boost overall capacity without increasing power output. Ubidyne has achieved a high profile in active antenna systems, and taken part in projects with Vodafone and other large carriers. Its chips can work with many antennas but CommScope has been a key partner since the two firms created a joint development of active antennas back in 2007. Another important customer has been Nokia Siemens, which has enabled active antennas in its Flexi Multiradio platform.

CommScope said in its statement: "The overall active antenna system performance compared well with traditional passive antennas and remote radio heads. This was confirmed by monitoring key performance indicators, such as signal-to-noise levels and uplink and downlink throughput rates. The same high performance LTE throughput levels were achievable with an active antenna system. The ability to independently tilt uplink and downlink elevation patterns was effective ... The ability to implement vertical sectorization showed significant promise for increasing capacity." It also touted self-healing features of the distributed design.

The company, which increased its antenna activities when it acquired Andrew for $2.6bn in 2007, also announced a new range of ultra-wideband base station products, designed to improve cost/performance in current networks and support LTE migrations and future spectrum bands. The CommScope High-Bandwidth (HW) family claims a "future-proof antenna solution for the 1710-2690MHz frequency range that is ideal for supporting additional licensed frequencies that are not currently available."

Ray Butler, VP of product line and engineering for base station antennas, said: "With the HW family, an operator can install the relevant model today that will not only cover its current frequency requirements but also provide exceptional performance in the future as new spectrum becomes available. In the past, the operator would have had to deploy two or three separate antennas in order to support the same amount of bandwidth." The products support LTE, UMTS, CDMA, GSM and WiMAX and carriers can switch to different air interfaces or frequencies as their needs change.