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Capacity Boost Technology

Challenges
As wireless communication came into the "Big Data" era, the
mobility and connectivity have become consumers' major
demands. The forecast shows that capacity requirements
will increase by 1,000 times beyond 2020, and therefore all
technologies are expected to focus on how to provide higherspeed networks and improve customer experience.
As one of the important parts of the wireless network, mobile
cellular network antennas also require a number of cutting-edge
strategies and technologies to maximize the performance of the
wireless network.

Huawei Technology Overview and Values

Figure 1 MIMO

Many technologies, such as multiple-input and multiple-output

(MIMO) and dual-beam, have been developed, facilitating capacity
enhancing of mobile cellular network antennas.

High Order MIMO Capabilities

MIMO uses multiple antennas on both the transmitter and receiver

As shown in figure 1, to enhance the antenna capacity, MIMO enables

ends to improve communications performance. It significantly

the same total transmit power over antennas to achieve an array gain

increases data throughput without additional bandwidth and

that improves the spectral efficiency. In addition, MIMO achieves a

transmit power, which attracts much attention in the LTE industry.

diversity gain that improves the link reliability (reduced fading).

Capacity Boost Technology

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At the very beginning of the cellular network, antennas with only

Since the capacity becomes a major challenge in the mobile

one vertical-polarized dipole column are applied to support 1T1R

broadband (MBB) era, MIMO enables multiple antennas to

(1 transmitting and 1 receiving) when the wireless environment

transmit and receive signals on both the uplink and downlink.

is not complex. With the development of urban informatization,

Generally, at least 2 x 2 MIMO antennas are required for LTE

antennas supporting cross-polarized dipole columns (1T2R) are

and 4 x 4 MIMO antennas are required for LTE-Advanced. Table

developed to deal with the multi-path effect of buildings and

1 lists the network capacities on both the uplink and downlink

vehicles (see figure 2).

supported by MIMO.

Figure 2 Antenna diversity evolution to support MIMO

Table 1 Capacity improvement with MIMO in uplink and downlink

Capacity Gain
Uplink

4R VS 2R

Cell Average

Cell Edge

30%-65%

50%-170%

Capacity Gain
Downlink

1T1R
1 V-pol column

1T2R
1 X-pol column

2T4R or 4T4R
2 X-pol column

Cell Average

Cell Edge

4 x 2 MIMO VS 2 x 2 MIMO

10-15%

10-40%

4 x 4 MIMO VS 2 x 2 MIMO

40-90%

40-100%

Dual-Beam Antenna Solution

Generally, the 2G network had been designed for voice services

Figure 2 Antenna diversity evolution to support MIMO

only, while the 3G network, such as UMTS, was first to combine

circuit-switched voice services and packed-based data services,
and therefore becomes the most developed network all around
the world. However, some 3G networks are quite overloaded due
to limited spectrum resources of each operator. In this situation,
6-sector solutions can be adopted to meet the capacity expansion
requirements (see figure 3).

3-sector cellular network

For a 6-sector cellular network, a well-designed dual-beam antenna

can be adopted to enhance the network performance and simplify
antenna deployment and installation compared with traditional 33o
horizontal beamwidth antenna in the following aspects:
Less overlapping areas between sectors enable easy control of
the soft handover (SHO) ratio.
The patterns are designed to be more isolated to reduce
interference between the two sectors.
Only one mounting space is required to reduce the labor cost.

Capacity Boost Technology

6-sector cellular network

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Besides, Huawei also adopts radiation pattern optimization designs

As a result of cell splitting, capacity of 6-sector cellular networks

for dual-beam antennas to reduce the horizontal side lobe further

is greatly improved compared with that of 3-sector cellular

more than traditional dual-beam antenna design (see figure 4).

networks, Table 2 describes the comparison.

Figure 4 Comparison of dual-beam antenna designs

Table 2 Comparison of dual-beam antenna designs

Dense Urban

Urban

72%

49%
39%
19%

Traditional dual-beam antenna

with high horizontal side lobe

Huawei dual-beam antenna

with horizontal side lobe optimization

6-sector (normal 33deg ant.)

6-sector (dual-beam)

Huawei Antenna Portfolio with Capacity Boost Technology

Dual-beam antenna
Band (MHz): 2 x 1710-2690
Size (mm): 1500 x 349 x 166

Band (MHz): 2 x 1710-2170/

2 x 2490-2690

Band (MHz): 1710-2690/1710-2170/

2490-2690

Beamwidth (o): 33

Length (m): 1.5

Length (m): 1.5

Gain (dBi): 20.5

Small size (W x D): 299 mm x 109 mm

Small size (W x D): 299 mm x 109 mm

MIMO: 2 x 2/2 x 4/4 x 4

MIMO: 2 x 2/2 x 4/4 x 4

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THIS DOCUMENT IS FOR INFORMATION PURPOSE ONLY, AND DOES NOT CONSTITUTE ANY KIND OF WARRANTIES.