Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antennas

With all the focus on LTE, LTE-Advanced and now 5G, it is easy to forget that High Speed Packet Access (HSPA/HSPA+), based on 3G WCDMA, is still the dominant mobile broadband technology worldwide. In February 2014, the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) reported that all WCDMA operators had launched HSPA, with 547 networks providing access to… Read more

A few months ago I wrote a summary of facts and figures on HSPA+, LTE and LTE-Advanced, based on the 3GPP Release 11 standard. With Release 12 due to be finalised in the middle of 2014, I thought I would write about some of the developments in the pipeline in the 3GPP work programme. The expected… Read more

One of the tools in the LTE toolbox of radio features is Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antennas. MIMO enables radio systems to achieve significant performance gains by using multiple antennas at their transmitters and receivers. In my Facts and figures on HSPA+, LTE and LTE-Advanced I comment that LTE-Advanced uses base stations and mobile… Read more

Here in the UK, where LTE services are still in their infancy, it feels premature to be looking forward to the fifth generation of mobile networks. However, in recent months there has been a significant increase in activity related to 5G. There has also been a flurry of misleading hype referring to LTE-Advanced (which strictly… Read more

NTT DoCoMo has announced that it will launch the world’s first combined HSDPA/LTE femtocells in December 2012, to enable improved indoor coverage for both 3G and 4G mobile handsets. Shops and offices will be able to offer high quality 3G and 4G coverage and users will be able to drop back to slower HSDPA services… Read more

Earlier this month, Russian network operator Yota reported it had launched the world’s first commercial LTE-Advanced network, using equipment supplied by Huawei. The network comprises 13 base stations in Moscow and Yota has reported downlink data at up to 300Mbit/s. However, Yota has admitted that it will not have terminals available until 2013 and the… Read more

Working in the UK, where commercial LTE services  are still not available, it is easy to forget that standardisation of LTE has been underway for many years. The first 3GPP standards were frozen way back in 2008, in 3GPP Release 8, and no fewer than five 3GPP releases containing LTE aspects have now received attention… Read more

Last month, the GSA highlighted accelerating deployments of LTE networks, and predicted that there will be at least 103 LTE networks commercially launched by the end of 2012. While LTE itself is still a new wireless technology, the pace of further developments has not slackened. In my last post, I reported that Sprint Nextel and… Read more

HSPA+ (also known as HSPA Evolution) adopts an even higher-order modulation than HSPA (64QAM compared with 16QAM) to boost peak rates further. Performance is further enhanced through the adoption of Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna technology. With MIMO, more than one transmit antenna is used at the base station and more than one receive… Read more