October 24, 2011

ISCO Does Spectrum Conditioning

CHICAGO – At today’s opening of the 4G World Conference at McCormick Place, ISCO International unveiled the 4G/LTE version of its Proteus spectrum-conditioning system, building on the success of product already in 3G use. 

While spectrum conditioning will be critical to delivering the data rates LTE promises, 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 can increase capacity by maximizing the performance of 3G; therefore, 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 also can increase data transfer rates to minimize the impact on the subscriber experience when falling back to 3G.

According to the Ill.-based company, the Proteus 4G will act as an intelligent “front end” installed at eNodeB base stations that provides ISCO’s patented “PurePass” digital signal processing to improve performance as measured, for instance, in the key Reverse Interference Power (RIP) 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, including cable TV outside plant, wireless microphones and broadcast TV, will cause the eNodeB to perform sub-optimally.  The Proteus PurePass mitigates this random interference.

Says CEO Gordon Reichard, “In LTE, data rates are higher, and performance is more dependent on the signal-to-noise ratio than ever before. 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 cellsite, 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 megahertz, 10 megahertz, 15 megahertz or 20 megahertz of channel bandwidths; it also accounts for the time domain structure of LTE, which is different than 3G CDMA and UMTS.

CT Reports is at the 4G World show and will be providing more coverage during the course of this week.