The new battlefield for 5G - Indoor coverage
More than 70% of 5G applications such as smart homes, smart factories, and AR/ VR occur indoors, but 5G higher-frequency signals cannot reach indoors from outside. Therefore, deepening indoor coverage and enabling application innovation is the key to 5G commercialization.
Indoor coverage is a new pain point for 5G
Higher frequency bands, more 5G mimo antenna , and richer applications are all "impossible missions" that traditional room distribution systems cannot accomplish.
1) Frequency Band
Traditional room-based passive components have a large loss in the 5G mid-frequency band, and it is difficult to meet the index requirements; as for the 5G millimeter-wave high-frequency band, it is a completely different set of equipment. If it is deployed in the traditional room-based way, the complexity is too high.
2）MIMO
5G requires more antennas, 5G 4X4 MIMO antenna or more. For the traditional room-based implementation of one antenna corresponding to one channel, the engineering is complex and capacity expansion is difficult. You also know that if there is no higher-order MIMO, beamforming and other technologies, then it is not called 5G, nor can it be called 5G room division.
3) Application
The indoor distribution system should introduce edge computing to open up service capabilities and generate richer 5G indoor applications. If you don't talk about edge computing these days, you will be ashamed yourself, but traditional room division cannot be realized.
In short, traditional indoor distribution systems can no longer keep up with the pace of technological evolution. It is estimated that more than 500,000 sets of traditional indoor distribution systems in China and about 1-2 million sets of traditional indoor distribution systems in the world will face gradual upgrades and replacements.
Throughout the history of indoor distribution, 5G indoor coverage is both a pain point, but also an opportunity. Huawei and Ericsson have released a new generation of 5G-specific Lampsite and Radio Dot products long before 5G is commercially available, laying out the indoor market in advance. At the same time, some traditional indoor distribution manufacturers are also actively transforming. For example, CommScope acquired the Small Cell supplier Airvana to launch products combining indoor distribution systems and cloud-based C-RAN; Corning acquired SpiderCloud to develop scalable Small Cells systems .
Facing the vast indoor market in the future, an indoor competition has been undercurrent.
The new digital room separation has entered the stage of the times, how long will it be until the traditional room separation ends sadly? Facing the reality, even if the new digital indoor distribution system is oriented towards the 5G future, it may take several years to upgrade or replace the millions of traditional indoor distribution systems.
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