MIMOtech launches ultra high capacity radio for last mile LTE backhaul

Backhaul capacity is one of the major challenges facing LTE/LTE-A operators today as they roll out networks and respond to increasing data traffic and growing subscriber numbers. Starburst Janus’ ultra high capacity enables data rates of several Gb/s to be achieved on a single frequency channel, providing four times the capacity and more than double the link performance achieved by competing products in a form factor that is reduced by 50%. Starburst Janus employs line-of-sight 4x4 MIMO and parallel radio processing, allowing a 100% improvement in spectral usage and significantly improving operators’ total cost of ownership.

“Starburst Janus offers double the performance of traditional non-line of sight MIMO - measured in either capacity or distance - coupled with a significantly lower cost per bit transported,” said Geoff Carey, Director at MIMOtech. “Starburst Janus also needs a significantly smaller antenna spacing than other LoS MIMO products on the market, which is a massive advantage for tower or rooftop applications where mounting space comes at a premium.”

Janus employs a novel, patented configuration of LoS MIMO that has a substantially smaller form factor than any other radio currently employing this technology. It uses two cross-polarised antennas spaced 1.5m apart, resulting in a mechanical configuration occupying a space that is comparable to that of a LTE sector antenna. Furthermore it uses a range of advanced microwave technologies that help operators to satisfy the growing demand for capacity - co-channel dual polarization with XPIC technology (utilizing the different polarizations of a frequency channel); higher order modulation schemes up to 1024QAM; high efficiency radio MAC (medium access control); asymmetrical bandwidth delivery; and Layer 1 link aggregation (Multi-Carrier Adaptive Bandwidth Control). All of these techniques have been used to improve spectral efficiency and thus boost microwave capacity; however LoS MIMO offers a further 100% improvement in spectral efficiency over and above these techniques alone.

Starburst Janus will be demonstrated for the first time on Booth 3863 at CTIA 2013, which takes place on May 21 – 23 at the Sands Expo and Convention Center, Las Vegas.

More about LoS MIMO
Line-of-Sight MIMO is a new technology in microwave communications. Inspired by, but inherently different from the well-known non-line-of-sight MIMO technology that is widely used in access networks, LoS MIMO revolutionizes microwave communication in terms of capacity and spectral efficiency.

Microwave radios operating in LoS MIMO provide a range of benefits including:

• Multiplying capacity: LoS MIMO enables transmission of two or more independent bitstreams over the same frequency and same polarization. This means 100% more capacity in a 2x2 MIMO configuration compared to a 1+0 SISO link without wasting additional spectrum resources. Using both polarizations of a frequency channel by employing a 4x4 MIMO scheme enables transmission of four independent bitstreams over the same frequency channel, and therefore effectively four times more capacity than a standard 1+0 SISO link or two times more capacity than a 2+0 SISO XPIC link.

• Reduced spectrum licensing fees: MIMO does not just multiply capacity, it also multiplies spectral efficiency. With more data transmitted over less spectrum, operators can save up to 75% on frequency license-related OPEX and reduce their TCO.

• Immunity to dispersive fading: Spatially separated antennas employed in MIMO can also provide the benefit of space-diversity link protection and result in higher immunity to dispersive fading than SISO links.

• Improved system gain: Combining received signals from both antennas boosts system gain by 3dB (as noise is uncorrelated between receivers), similar to that achieved by space-diversity systems with IF-combining. Further improvement to system gain can be achieved at the expense of the capacity boost by splitting a bitstream between transmitters operating in MIMO, thus enabling reduction of modulation scheme and, in turn, increasing system gain (both Tx power and Rx sensitivity). This can help in achieving longer link distances, reduced antenna sizes, or spectrum decongestion by utilizing higher frequencies for long-distance links. An improvement of as much as 20dB can be achieved.