New VEGA multi – beam antennas ensure efficient IOT at great distances from the tower even in difficult terrain situations
Very high gain antennas play a crucial role in NB-IoT integration. Explore the significance of base station antennas in cellular coverage for seamless rollouts.Much is being both said and written as to the best ways of integrating NB-IOT into the cellular world. However, let us not forget, that as with any other cellular coverage issue, the sometimes forgotten (or underrated) component in the Radio Access Network that can make or break any NB-IOT (or any other) roll out is the humble base station antenna.
Ignoring momentarily the issue of immobile IOT units such as gas/water meters, let’s focus on the millions of existing mobile IOT units in fast-moving vehicles. The quality of connectivity for these units depends on the performance of very high gain antennas in the IoT infrastructure.
NB-IOT can be implemented with a much larger timing window / distance than cellular voice / data can. Operators are discussing huge, up to one hundred-kilometer distances from the BTS in certain scenarios. Only an antenna designed for effective coverage at distance from the BTS can answer this challenge.
The obvious answer is wide use of very high gain, very narrow beam antennas such as the VEGA family. World wide experience over the past 15 years in various challenging topographic and climatic situations has proven the ability of these unique gems of antenna design to provide high QOS to fast moving closed vehicles and trains at great distances from base stations and successfully serve users on Islands up to 60 kilometers (!) from a tower on a 400-meter-high hill.
As one of the NB-IoT design targets is a battery life of 10 years or more, only very high gain antennas at the Hub / BTS will enable ten-fold lower transmission power of the “Thing”.
The new family of VEGA multi beam very high gain, very narrow beam antennas soon to be introduced, will enable NB-IoT operators to cover wide swaths of territory at great distances from existing towers without need of large numbers of antennas whilst providing a strong quality signal where needed.
Questions? Go to www.comarcom.com or Linkedin
