RF&WirelessBlog

Ubidyne to show active antenna system for 700MHz LTE at Mobile Word Congress

Ubidyne has announced that it will be featuring a new active antenna solution for the US LTE 700MHz digital dividend band at next month's Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona. The uB700 Antenna Embedded Radio with flexible beam forming and tilting capabilities has just completed independent network trials with a leading US mobile operator, reportedly delivering double throughput at the cell edge and an increase of over 40% cell capacity with the same output power. Ubidyne says these results show that operators can use active antenna technology to address the exploding demand for wireless data by maximising coverage and capacity from their existing macrocells before they need to invest in small cells.

In addition to the new uB700, Ubidyne's uB900 Antenna Embedded Radio supports GSM, UMTS and LTE in the 900MHz frequency band to address mobile networks in Europe, Africa, Oceania, Asia and the Middle East. Future products are also in development for the European digital dividend bands of 800MHz and highband up to 2.6GHz as well as multi-band solutions.

By removing the need for bulky coaxial feeder cables, remote electrical tilt assemblies and additional amplifiers on antenna towers and masts, Ubidyne says that its active antenna technology significantly reduces installation costs and energy consumption while improving radio performance, deployment flexibility, coverage and network capacity. OPEX costs and outages are further reduced by a self-healing mechanism that secures antenna coverage in the event of a system failure.

"The US trials show that active antennas can significantly increase cell capacity using vertical sectorisation and double the uplink throughput at the cell edge as well as increase the coverage area with independent uplink and downlink tilting," said Michael Fränkle, CEO of Ubidyne. "Active antenna technology offers end users a continuous service, while operators will save both CAPEX and OPEX costs; we have the potential to dramatically change the radio architecture and operations of mobile communications without migrating to small cells at tremendous cost. Active antennas have arrived and we are seeing increasing interest and demand from operators around the world."

Elliptic debuts new multi-packet processing security engine

Elliptic Technologies’ latest security engine is called the Multi-Packet Manager - a highly programmable and efficient security protocol accelerator with enhanced processing capabilities for multiple data streams. The Multi-Packet Manager is suitable for applications that deal with multiple active connections and significant traffic load on different contexts, such as 4G LTE-Advanced wireless cellular base stations and femtocells.

Fluke Networks’ new tablet provides fast root cause analysis of network and application problems

Fluke Networks has introduced the OptiView XG, a network analysis tablet that the company says provides the fastest solutions for network and application problems for both wireless and wired access – anywhere in the network. The tablet expedites network and application problem solving by automating root cause analysis and providing guided troubleshooting to address problem areas.

Femtocells to the fore at the Fira – Mobile World Congress 2011

This year more than ever before, femtocells were one of the key technology stories at Mobile World Congress. But far from just conventional residential femtocells, larger enterprise and 'metro' femtocells were much in evidence this time, and the distinction between these and microcells or picocells is now largely based on which platform they have been developed on rather than their physical size or capacity. At the opposite end of the spectrum, a residential femtocell can now be realised in a USB dongle form factor.

Alcatel-Lucent proposes distributed structure to replace traditional basestation

Alcatel-Lucent has announced lightRadio, a new concept in mobile and broadband infrastructure that it says will both streamlines and radically simplify mobile networks, which is on show at this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Pioneered by Alcatel-Lucent's R&D arm Bell Labs, and supported by partners Freescale and HP, the new lightRadio system replaces basestations with much smaller components that are distributed both into the antenna and throughout a cloud-like network, thereby reducing both power consumption and technical complexity.

Cell planning and optimisation in the spotlight for Mobile World Congress

With the growing pressure on operators to manage their networks effectively to improve efficiency and capacity, automatic tools for cell planning and optimisation are becoming increasingly important. A number of vendors have made recent announcements both about products and about partnerships with operators and vendors, and among others they are expected to make their mark at next week's Mobile World Congress. LTE has brought new design challenges, which include features such as MIMO, multiple frequency bands, variable bandwidths and adaptive coding and modulation, which all have a significant impact on the business case for LTE deployment.

Wireless moves into a new decade

The first week of a new year may seem a rather unsociable time to hold a major trade show, but the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas has become established as a showcase for the new product developments that will shape the immediate future of the consumer electronics market. In recent years wireless technology, and wireless-enabled IT products, have increased to become a dominant part of this market. The first days of a new year are also the traditional time for looking forward to what the future will bring, so the conjunction is timely.

So what will the new decade bring for the wireless and RF industry?

Basestation market up 10% in 2009, says In-Stat

The number of newly deployed macro cellular basestations worldwide has grown by over 10% during 2009, according to a newly published report by analysts In-Stat. The basestation market is thriving despite the poor state of the worldwide economy, and is being driven by demand for mobile phones, especially smartphones, and wireless broadband services. macro cellular basestations will grow over 10% in 2009.

TeliaSonera launches world’s first LTE networks in Stockholm and Oslo

TeliaSonera yesterday became the first operator to offer LTE services commercially, to customers in Stockholm, Sweden, and Oslo, Norway. The two networks cover the central areas of the two cities, and will be used for mobile data at speeds up to ten times higher than HSPA. TeliaSonera owns nationwide LTE licenses in Sweden, Norway and also recently in Finland, and network rollout is now in progress to offer 4G services to the rest of the larger cities in Sweden and Norway.