In the case of WiFi 802.11n, MIMO is an acronym for “multi-in/multi-out”, a new way to say there is more than one unique data stream sent over-air to increase your overall data speed.

To accomplish this, Access Points seem to be springing evermore antennas. I guess if two antennas were better than one, then, six or nine antennas must be truly awesome? In reality that extra data speed may be difficult to benefit from with any degree of reliability due to the limited improvements of receiver sensitivity, only about 1 to 2dB. Things are no better in the other direction where transmission gains are 0dB.

There are two modes to MIMO. Where you increase your bandwidth, or attempt to, with different RF signals this is known as MIMO mode B. This describes the bulk of the outdoor MIMO equipment marketed these days, including WIFI 802.11n.

When moving away from the IEEE802.11n standard, and in this case its limitations, one can experience the true joy that only MIMO mode A can provide. Unlike mode B which divides the data into different streams, mode A sends the same data on all streams on the same RF channel. The net benefit of doing this in the case of Redline’s  www.rdlcom.com RDL3000 radio is 4dB improvement on the receiver and on the transmitter an even better 5dB.

For those who missed out on logarithms in grade eight, 4dB+5dB = 9dB which represents an EIGHT TIMES improvement in signal. It gets better. In the case of the RDL3000, it is intelligent enough to know when the conditions exist to seamlessly switch from mode A to mode B to take advantage of improved wireless conditions where, in its case, the benefits are realized in both directions.

WiMAX systems employ MIMO-A also. However in the drive to keep subscriber radio costs down there are no CPEs with MIMO-A on transmit. Although there is still benefit in the downlink direction, which admittedly works well for residential customers, it doesn’t fit as well into up and coming industrial applications where bandwidth demands are much more symmetrical, and often more demanding from a propagation perspective.

In summary, with broadband wireless, as with many things in life, the devil is always in the details so do your homework to make sure you’re getting the best bang for your dollar (or peso, euro, real, dinar, franc, ringgit etc.)

With the arrival of spring and the need to expand and enhance wireless networks, Alliance now offers all combinations of SuperTitan self-support towers in stock up to 160 feet.  These towers are designed to meet CSA S37-01 or TIA/EIA 222 F & G standards and may be purchased with complete sets of Engineering Stamped Drawings.

Require a taller or a more robust tower, then consider the SuperTitan MAX.  This self-support tower is available with heights up to 251 feet and capable of supporting a 92 square foot load at 350Pa, CSA S37-01 with 25 mm of ice. These towers are available to be delivered direct from the factory to the construction site in 3 weeks.

Like the SuperTitan, the SuperTitan MAX towers are designed to meet CSA S37-01 or TIA/EIA 222 F & G standards and may be purchased with complete sets of Engineering Stamped Drawings.

Trylon’s most popular tower, the Titan, offers heights up to 96 feet and provides the most economical approach to above tree heights where a “survival” tower is all that is required. The T200-96’ tower is also now available at Alliance for immediate delivery.

For more information, contact us today.

Passive intermodulation (PIM) is defined as two or more wireless signals mixing together to create additional, undesired frequencies that cause interference or degrade transmission of desired signals in wireless networks. It has long been recognized as an obstacle to network efficiency. With today’s newer technologies, however, PIM is growing exponentially. Data usage is increasing but is not yet being proactively managed. Hypersensitive antennas and radios are susceptible to minute levels of distortion.

Meanwhile, there are more components than ever in the RF path; each is another potential source of passive intermodulation. The incidence and cost of PIM are critical threats to network efficiency, channel capacity, and bottom line profit. Effectively addressing PIM requires an approach that is both holistic and proactive.

Alliance’s partner, Commscope, has developed a program called PIM Happens, Just Not on Our Watch, to comprehensively address PIM issues.

On their web site you will find links to many useful tools and guide. Some of these include:

PIM Calculator

Andrew Solutions has developed a sophisticated PIM Calculator that enables operators to input various RF path components, along with the component PIM specification, model number, and cable length.  The PIM Calculator then generates both a typical PIM value (in which the vectors combine randomly), and a worst-case value (in which the vectors all combine in-phase.) Click for more details.

PIM Testing Guidelines -download and use these guidelines to make sure you are testing the right way.

Training

The best way to minimize PIM is to work to prevent it during field installation.

At the Andrew Institute educators have developed a new PIM Fundamentals curriculum that focuses on installation and connectorization.

It covers all Andrew products in the RF path including crossband couplers, tower mounted amplifiers, base station antennas, and transmission line products.

The PtP Estimator allows you to determine quickly whether a point-to-point link will work between two locations that you specify.

It enables you to compare manufacturers, simply and accurately, while taking into account the terrain of your area, products’ performance and more.

Go to the Alphimax website , register and launch the PtP Estimator page.

This tool currently works with the following broadband wireless manufacturer’s products:

Alvarion
Ceragon
Motorola
Redline Communications

Markus Frind, CEO of Plenty of Fish, mentioned during the interview that they have seen a major change in the way people use POF over the last year. He wrote a blog post about it:

The web is dead, Its all about mobile…

In the last year POF has gone from having no mobile apps to  3 Billion pageviews a month on apps & 300 million visits and our mobile traffic continues to grow at 3% a week. In comparison the website has been around since 2003 and only has 160 Million visits a month and 4 billion pageviews. To give a sense of how quickly mobile is taking over online dating 40% of our signups are now via a mobile device in the US up from under 10% at the start of last year. Ipad usage grew 88% in one month from December 2011 to Jan 2012.

Given our current growth POF is probably going to be 60-70% mobile by the end of the year. Now most people think that mobile is just for young people,  that is simply not true,  we are already majority mobile for 30-40 year olds in the US and in a few months 40-50 is going to be majority mobile in the US.

I find this very interesting and not really surprising, given the time I spend on my own iPhone on other apps. Since I am well-past the dating scene I had not given thought to the ‘dating apps’ out there. Over lunch my friend’s iPhone was constantly giving her updates from the POF app that drew her away from our conversation.

The growth in the usage of their mobile app is at a crazy pace for POF and you can bet this will have impact on mobile networks. I look forward to seeing some updated studies from the analysts on the growth in network demand!

]]> http://www.alliancecorporation.ca/blog/wireless-capacity/mobile-dating/feed 0 http://www.alliancecorporation.ca/blog/das/das-and-the-superbowl http://www.alliancecorporation.ca/blog/das/das-and-the-superbowl#comments Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:40:38 +0000 Lisa http://www.alliancecorporation.ca/blog/?p=155 Continue reading →]]> We predict that on Sunday February 5, 2012 fans at Lucas Oil Stadium will be able to watch the Superbowl and share the experience with friends on Facebook and other social media without a problem, thanks to their new DAS system.

Watch this video to see Eric Mann, Network Engineering Director, Verizon Wireless gives an outside and inside tour of Lucas Oil Stadium and the infrastructure Verizon Wireless has put in place to support voice and data traffic for Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis.

DAS eliminates need for temporary assets – COWs - cell on wheels – though Verizon is apparently bringing in 3 anyway.

The DAS system is permanent so it will be there to support future events at the same facility. With the DAS equipment they have installed in the Lucas Oil Stadium, there are over 400 DAS antennnas installed all throughout the stadium to provide optimal coverage everywhere.

GottabeMobile has written a great post explaining what has been done.

Look forward to hearing the results!

My husband’s portion of our mobile phone bill this month is 68% above the regular amount because he went over his data plan, by a LOT. A couple of months ago he was over 150% above the plan because he was watching movies. When that bill arrived he was shocked (me too!). As a non-techie, he had no idea how much data movies and TV shows consume. Good news for the carriers – a lot of people don’t know what a MB or GB is.

Yet here we are in the next month and he’s still way over his plan. The culprit this time? Apps. A lot of Apps. I asked him to remove some apps – he removed over 20! And he installed an app that allows you to monitor your data usage and it warns you if you are near the maximum. It’s difficult to tell which apps are using a lot of data. I found an interesting article where someone analyzed how much data the iPhone consumed when using various apps. It’s not hard to use 10Mb just looking at a map.

The iPhone and Apps are a boon for carriers – increased data usage equals increased ARPU but it also means added strain on their network.

What I see happening (and of course I am not alone in this prediction) is hockey stick growth in the data market for mobile broadband. This video created by Alliance partner Commscope summarizes the exponential growth predicted nicely.

Watch a video showing the tool in action

The CommScope cSolutions iPad app gives you multiple levels of information about their portfolio of end-to-end solutions for high-performing wired and wireless communication networks. Choose the market, choose the solution, and then navigate to the content you want, including: solutions overviews, 360° product views, interior product views, product photo galleries, product descriptions, links to eCatalog.

Before Downloading Please Note:
This is a secure app. In order to activate and use this app, you will need approval from CommScope. Upon approval a unique username and password will be sent to you.

A HetNet (short for heterogeneous network) is two interlinking networks (or layers), each of which has distinct a purpose.  Layer one is the coverage (or macro) network, the second is the capacity network.

Most of us in the wireless industry are familiar with the term macro network (or coverage layer).  It is the traditional tower and roof top mounted network that carriers have been deploying for years.

The capacity network is an interlinked combination of iDAS, oDAS , microcell and picocell equipment that aims to solve the capacity issues next generation networks are seeing since wideband networks are better served by smaller, lower powered cells to provide that capacity.

Fewer and fewer people have coverage issues in an urban setting.  The complaint has now shifted to capacity or availability of bandwidth for intensive applications like video.  Most everyone has experienced capacity issues during special events or even in dense urban situations.

Separating the focus and development of these two vastly different network topologies is the best way to tackle the divergent and considerable challenges for each.  The iDAS and oDAS worldwide equipment market is expected to balloon from $6.5 billion in 2010 to $23.2 billion in 2015 according to In-Stat.

iDAS (in-building distributed antenna system), microcell and picocells have all been deployed in varying degrees over the years, but they have been deployed as a coverage solution.  As carrier start deploying these solutions designed for capacity the deluge of iDAS will begin. oDAS (outdoor distributed antenna system) deployments are a newer occurrence in the wireless world and they are expect to see exponential growth.

With more users using the same amount of spectrum, always expecting faster and faster data speeds, more capital dollars will be funneled into capacity HetNet solutions like iDAS and oDAS.  Gone are the days of “blasting” a facility from a macro site to provide in-building coverage.

For years the motto has been “coverage is king”, that motto has now shifted to “capacity is king”.  HetNet apears to be the most cost effective way to get there.

Photo: Chris Farley and Adam Sandler perform “Lunch Lady Land” on SNL (Photo Source: The SNL Archives)

This will create some real opportunities for our customers and their customers to easily set up truly wide-band 1 Gigabit per second data links between locations as far apart as 5km.

Its our hope that Industry Canada will apply a more affordable licensing structure to this band as it doesn’t really fit in with RIC-42 which was created years before the new technology ultra-wideband radios were designed.

We have submitted our thoughts to IC before their deadline of October 21^st and wait with baited breath as to how these new bands will be managed. Below is our response.

Date: October 2011
Attn: Department of Industry Radiocommunications

Response to the above from Alliance Corporation Canada

Gentlepeople,

We welcome the opportunity to share our thoughts on the utilization of these higher-frequency microwave bands. For background, Alliance Corporation is the premier value-added distribution company of broadband wireless apparatus in Canada and has been serving our markets since 1993. We are wholly Canadian owned and have offices in USA and Mexico, and both of these countries already make use of the bands in question for 70/80 GHz broadband wireless apparatus supplied by us.

Summary:

We are of the opinion that fixed point-to-point microwave links in these bands should be licensed on a per-link basis. We also feel that the current RIC-42 fee structure should not be applied to this new spectrum as it will be detrimental to acceptance. We’d like to suggest a yearly license fee more akin to that historically charged for experimental applications in these bands. We’re also in favour of the CEPT Recommended Band Plan with 19 paired channels of 250 MHz each with the option of channel bonding for wider bandwidth radios. If license fees are based on per-channel use, we feel its important to consider that many products make use of 6 of these contiguous channels so reasonable pricing would need to be in place for each frequency pair. In terms of administering the use of this band our preference is for Industry Canada to be involved in a similar, but less stringent, manner than that currently applied to conventional fixed microwave licensing. With respect to the application itself, we’re of the opinion a much lighter approach from that used in RSP-113 would suffice. From a technical perspective we like the rules applied by the FCC for such apparatus with one exception. Their spectral efficiency minimum of 0.125 bits per Hz was born out of a time when the technology on these higher frequency bands was in its infancy. I realize the mild modulation schemes of many of these radio products fall short of the typical 1.0 bit per Hz minimum applied to regular fixed licensed products, but feel 0.5 bits per Hz is a realistic target to ensure efficient use of the new bands when combined with the cost-per-channel model suggested above. We suggest a yearly renewal of licenses to keep it in synch with this aspect of the current RIC-42 model.

Comments:

The products of which Alliance Corporation markets all fall into the terrestrial application range. Hence the only comment we’ll make concerning co-existence with satellites is that it must be considered when deploying new systems. This may be something that in this “lightly licensed” case Industry Canada would be in the best position to manage.

With respect to interference we have a few thoughts born out of much experience with other lightly-licensed & license-exempt bands. Although the likelihood of co-band interference on these frequencies should be appreciably less than those currently covered in RSS-210, we can see the potential for future problems as popularity and typically increasing bandwidth trends occur. Keeping in mind radios typically used in these bands will likely be carrying profoundly more data bandwidth than other wireless systems, it is our thought that any interruption to this kind of link would be potentially catastrophic to the licensee. To this end, in broad terms using a FCFS (first come first served) approach to licenses should be considered the primary means of resolving any conflicts. It is our hope that proper band management would reduce this possibility of occurring. In the event of differing services clashing, the primary band user shall have to prevail.

One item not addressed in the notice is how adherence to Health Canada Safety Code 6 will be handled. Historically for transmitters mounted in such a manner that persons could place themselves in the primary wave-front, appropriate warning signage needed to be installed. We’re of the opinion that any radios installed in these bands should never be installed in this manner and that minimum requirements concerning height above rooftop or edge of roof should be part of a successful application.