one factor in making site acquisition easier is that the RAN is in the same module as the antenna. This should eliminate long runs of fat coaxial cable up the Macro towers to carry high power RF from old school base stations up to antenna located far away. For this design, you have to run power cable and a feedline for the signal. but this should easily reduce the physical weight load on the towers, and lower wind loading as well. And remember, for most multi element antenna's, you run a co-ax per element, or some combination of several RF feeds. So even for 2 antenna, you reduce the coax footprint by 2 coax cables. These are heavy and create wind load and cost money to buy and install.
And site acquisition process is likely affected because these units could in theory nest onto existing towers without much extra infrastructure being needed. Tower owners would find it easier to approve hanging these units if the overall loading was either minimally impacted, or even reduced if you can remove some coax.
Also with this set up, you should theoretically save power. No RF losses for carrying the signal up long coax antenna runs. you can therefore use fewer or lower power RF amplifiers. So less power consumption.
I am sure this is not all of it, but given some background experience I had in towers and antenna, this has got to be part of it.
The blogs and comments are the opinions only of the writers and do not reflect the views of Light Reading. They are no substitute for your own research and should not be relied upon for trading or any other purpose.
To save this item to your list of favorite Light Reading content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
