4G WORLD — ISCO International has unveiled the 4G/LTE version of its Proteus spectrum conditioning system. The company is targeting the unique challenges of LTE network transmissions and their greater susceptibility to capacity-sapping signal interference.
Isco says Proteus 4G will act as an intelligent “front end" installed at eNodeB base stations, providing ISCO’s PurePass digital signal processing to improve performance as measured, for instance, in the key RIP (Reverse Interference Power) and thermal noise power metrics. As RIP and thermal noise increase, coverage area and data transfer rates decrease – negatively impacting data throughput and causing subscriber devices to “power up" in order to connect with the eNodeB, which reduces battery life.
Random interference from a variety of sources, such as cable television outside plant, wireless microphones and broadcast TV, will cause the eNodeB to perform sub-optimally, the company said. That’s where the Proteus PurePass comes in.
“In LTE, data rates are higher and performance is more dependent on the Signal to Noise ratio than ever before," said Gordon Reichard, CEO of ISCO Intl. “Our testing to date with major LTE network operators has revealed a 20 percent increase in uplink data rates and a 15 percent increase in cell coverage. For instance, during drive tests, with co-channel interference present, connectivity could not be established beyond 1.5 miles. Applying Proteus 4G with PurePass extended the coverage area of the cell site, allowing connectivity in excess of two miles with expected downlink and uplink data rate performance.“
Proteus 4G PurePass digital signal processing provides spectrum conditioning across 5, 10, 15 or 20MHz of channel bandwidths and accounts for the time domain structure of LTE, which is different than 3G CDMA and UMTS. PurePass also recognizes the complex varying power spectral density of LTE in the frequency domain measuring at high resolution within the resource block.
ISCO says spectrum certainly will be critical to delivering the data rates LTE promises, but it will become even more important to existing 3G networks that will remain in place and operational for at least the next three to five years. UMTS and CDMA will continue to carry voice traffic and provide coverage in areas waiting for LTE coverage. Spectrum conditioning, ISCO says, can increase capacity by maximizing the performance of 3G. A network operator can delay or avoid the capital expenditure of having to increase capacity by deploying an extra carrier to serve more customers. Spectrum conditioning can also increase data transfer rates to minimize the impact on the subscriber experience when falling back to 3G.
