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“Wireless traffic in the United States has nearly doubled during the last year and aggregate global mobile data traffic is expected to grow 11 to 13 times over the next five years,” observed Chris Pearson, President of 4G Americas. “This pressures the entire wireless industry to provide increased capacity and improved network performance. Many wireless carriers are meeting this challenge by a variety of means, not least of which has been the deployment of increasingly capable smart antenna solutions.”

 

The 4G Americas white paper, MIMO and Smart Antennas for Mobile Broadband Systems, provides specific details of the Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) techniques and antenna configurations that have helped meet the burgeoning growth in mobile broadband demand. The white paper focuses on the transmit modes (TMs) and the appropriate antenna configurations that have proven themselves in field deployments.

 

“Base station antenna technology has progressed in response to industry requirements and trends,” commented Stephen Wilkus, Director, Wireless Chief Technology Office at Alcatel-Lucent and the technical work group leader for the 4G Americas white paper. “The key drivers have been the continuing addition of cellular frequency bands, the integration of more functionality into single radome housing, and antenna techniques that contribute additional capacity to cellular networks.”

 

4G Americas’ report emphasizes the growing importance of not only smart antennas, but the smart application of antenna technologies of all sorts, and highlights the impressive strides in the art of antenna technologies and their associated signal processing. Further enhancements will continue as new techniques are standardized at 3GPP and operators and vendors collaborate to develop and implement advanced technology antenna techniques. MIMO and smart antennas play an important role for operators to increase their network performance along with the commercial deployment of LTE.

 

The LTE standard has made tremendous gains in the efficient use of MIMO and general smart antenna schemes, many of which have been increasingly applied to HSPA systems. LTE is unique in requiring that all terminals include a second receive antenna for receive diversity and downlink MIMO support.

 

The 4G Americas white paper focuses on the following areas:

·         Antenna Fundamentals

·         MIMO with LTE

·         Antenna Configurations for MIMO

·         Performance of the Various Antenna Configurations

·         Analysis of Antenna Configurations for 4X2 and 4X4 MIMO

·         Antenna Array Calibration

 

Pearson remarked, “Government telecom policy makers throughout the Americas region must remain strident in the allocation of more licensed wireless spectrum for society.” He continued, “The industry is not standing by idly waiting for spectrum, but continues a full court press to progress technology to the limit to meet the demands that are already constraining network capacity and performance.”

 

The 4G Americas white paper, MIMO and Smart Antennas for Mobile Broadband Systems, was written collaboratively by members of 4G Americas and is available for free download at: www.4gamericas.org. A previous white paper published in 2012 offers more detail and pictorial information and may be downloaded at: MIMO and Smart Antennas for Mobile Broadband Networks.

 

 

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4G Americas is an industry trade organization composed of leading telecommunications service providers and manufacturers. The organization's mission is to promote, facilitate and advocate for the deployment and adoption of the 3GPP family of technologies throughout the Americas. 4G Americas contributes to the successful commercial rollout of 3GPP mobile broadband technologies across the Americas and their place as the No. 1 technology family in the region. The organization aims to develop the expansive wireless ecosystem of networks, devices, and applications enabled by GSM and its evolution to LTE-Advanced. 4G Americas is headquartered in Bellevue, Wash., with an office for Latin America and the Caribbean in Dallas. More information is available at www.4gamericas.org.

 

4G Americas' Board of Governors members include: Alcatel-Lucent, América Móvil, AT&T, BlackBerry, Cable & Wireless, Cisco, CommScope, Entel, Ericsson, Gemalto, HP, Mavenir, Nokia Siemens Networks, Openwave Mobility, Powerwave, Qualcomm, Rogers, T-Mobile USA and Telefónica.

 

Contact:  
4G Americas

Vicki Livingston    
+1 262 242 3458     
vicki.livingston@4gamericas.org