Horne to Lead Subcommittee on Wireless Signal Boosters
The Wireless Communications Association International (WCAI) Engineering Committee voted Thursday to launch a Signal Boosters Subcommittee and elected LBA Group CTO Chris Horne as the chair. Chris Horne, Harry Perlow of Sprint is WCAI Engineering Committee Chair. The WCAI subcommittee on Signal Boosters is established in response to the FCC’s recent Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) which addresses interference concerns by mobile operators including AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. The purpose of the subcommittee is to invite comments from operators and vendors and then prepare a white paper and other guidance that addresses the variety of engineering and operational issues.
For example, a mobile signal booster may enter and disrupt a wireless network because of an out of band emissions (OOBE) compliance issue as well as improper installation. Mobile signal boosters can be problematic since marginal amplifier performance coupled with poor antenna isolation may cause electromagnetic oscillation leading to a high noise floor at nearby base stations.
The popular Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) are becoming more widespread in a carrier’s network and while DAS may be considered a signal booster system, most legal cases prompting the NPRM involved mobile signal boosters installed with little or no understanding of the potential effects of interference on the operators macro network.
Other issues to be studied include signal booster gain control circuitry, interference and radio interface failures (RIF) in wireless networks, and best practices in interference mitigation techniques.
LBA offers interference mitigation and litigation support services on signal boosters; intermodulation studies; passive intermod (PIM) testing and other wireless interference resolution consultation. To discuss your wireless engineering requirements, contact lbagrp@lbagroup.com
