White papers

Cecile Philippo July 20, 2022

Pushing the Limits of Wind Loading on Macro Sites

As the appetite for data continues to grow, wireless providers need to deploy more and more base station antennas to keep pace and deliver the required capacity. With 5G roll outs gathering momentum, we are seeing existing cell sites pushed to their loadbearing limit, but more is still needed. Due to the cost and logistical challenges, acquiring new sites is often not a practical option, meaning equipment designers need to push to extend the wind loading limits to ease the problem.

Paula Mennone May 30, 2022

Mining and mission-critical wireless connectivity

Laying the foundation for the digital transformation of mining

Paula Mennone March 11, 2022

Tackling Indoor 5G Coverage

Earlier this year, we expanded our HYBRIFLEX portfolio to support DRS, Small Cell and Active DAS for in-building and across campus deployments. Read our latest whitepaper for a more detailed look at how we’re helping our customers address 5G challenges.

Paula Mennone January 3, 2022

Making higher education institutions smarter with private wireless

Higher education institutions are seeking to rapidly digitalize their operations so they can better serve the changing needs of students, academic staff and researchers on their campuses. To succeed, they must evolve their wireless communications infrastructure to offer higher-performing applications and tools that will help their staff and students work more productively. Until now, their main approach has been to upgrade or replace existing Wi-Fi networks, but Wi-Fi technology is starting to show limitations in its ability to meet the increased demands of mobility, latency, throughput and total cost of ownership (TCO).

Paula Mennone May 22, 2021

Creating the connected digital mine

Nokia and RFS provide critical communications solutions for making mine operations safer, more productive and efficient

Paula Mennone May 22, 2021

Railways: Leading the way to 5G

As we enter the era of 5G, rail operators now have a game-changing opportunity to modernize aging railway infrastructures, creating new applications, revenue streams and operating models based on mobile broadband capabilities.

Paula Mennone May 21, 2021

A New Platform for Rail Communications

5G offers a major opportunity for rail operators to transform their operations for the better. Its high speed and extreme traffic handling capacity, together with ultra-low response times, highest reliability and support for massive machine type communication (IoT), will allow rail networks to improve safety, optimize costs and make their services more attractive to passengers in many ways. Such capabilities will make the telecommunication network the cornerstone of railways’ ambitions for further digitization.

Paula Mennone March 30, 2021

Private wireless communications for underground mines

The automation of critical processes is vital for mining companies seeking to increase operational efficiency and productivity while improving worker safety. To enable the automation applications that will deliver these results, mining companies need pervasive and dependable wireless connectivity above ground and underground. Reliable critical communications is the foundation for mine digitalization, automation and autonomous operation.

Paula Mennone March 17, 2021

A Dual-Band Answer to the Challenges of 5G Backhaul

The vision and market value of 5G is absolutely contingent on having the right infrastructure in place to support it. Reliable backhaul is an absolutely critical part of that solid infrastructure and so one of the big challenges that operators face is how to deliver robust backhaul that marries the capacity, coverage and reliability to let 5G reach its promised potential.

Paula Mennone January 3, 2021

Digitalizing the oil & gas value chain

Take a look at critical communications solutions that transform E&P operations and fuel the energy transition.

Paula Mennone March 10, 2018

RFS Variable Polarization Technology

The North American model for broadcasting had traditionally been one in which individual stations own their own tower, transmitter and antenna. A recent trend has been the use of shared sites and shared antennas, allowing broadcasters to reduce infrastructure and operational costs.

February 21, 2018

Simplify The Evolution to 5G Networks with Active-Passive Antennas (APA)

The 5G world is almost upon us and with it will come new applications such as virtual reality, augmented reality, self-driving cars, digital healthcare, robotics, and massive use of the Internet of Things (IoT), all of which will affect our daily lives. However, to achieve these capabilities, there are still numerous technical and economic challenges facing the industry that must be solved.

November 24, 2017

RFS Co-Location Filters Support Buildout of 4G Network

In 2016, with the demand for reliable 4G service growing across Pakistan’s major cities, a Tier 1 global operator won 10 MHz in the country’s 850 MHz spectrum auction.

May 23, 2017

The Story Of The Build By The Team That Did It

When the World Trade Center towers fell, the RF transmission systems of 13 New York City area television stations were destroyed.

Nicolas Villeroy June 3, 2016

The Effect of Low Quality Antennas on Network Backhaul

This paper describes the effects of numerous quality variables on the performance of a microwave antenna, and provides insight into the long-term consequences of using a low-cost/ poor quality antenna.

Nicolas Villeroy May 3, 2016

Know Your Options: Future-Proof Antennas for the US Repack

As the North America broadcast market embarks on the spectrum repack later in 2016 there are many decisions to be made. One of those is antenna technology selection.

Nicolas Villeroy March 3, 2016

RFS Prepares for US DTV Repack – Are you ready?

With the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) broadcast television spectrum incentive auction process now defined, the challenges facing the North American Broadcasters to transition to new channels in the allotted timeframe are significant.

Nicolas Villeroy January 3, 2016

Technical Analysis: Flexible Feed Design

This RFS White Paper highlights RFS’ “flexible feed” architecture of its CompactLine® and CompactLine® Easy antennas.

Nicolas Villeroy January 3, 2015

Beamforming vs. MIMO antennas

RFS’ white paper discusses the architectural differences between an antenna that has been designed for MIMO performance and one that has been optimized for beamforming. It will explain why antenna characteristics that are desirable for MIMO will result in a degradation of the beamforming ability of the antenna.

Nicolas Villeroy March 3, 2014

Overcoming the Challenges of 4G LTE and MIMO for In-Tunnel Wireless Connectivity

The purpose of this white paper is to review the design challenges for in-tunnel LTE applications and to analyze the key performance indicators. The document summarizes the results of a comprehensive measurement campaign focusing on in-tunnel LTE performance based on RFS RADIAFLEX® radiating cables.

Nicolas Villeroy January 3, 2014

Understanding Small Cell Blackhaul : challenges and solutions

This article will explore the need for small cell backhaul and the challenges faced by mobile operators, as well as look at the viable technology options that are emerging to enable sites that are aesthetically pleasing without sacrificing performance or becoming cost-prohibitive.

Nicolas Villeroy February 3, 2011

Polarization Diversity - Variable Polarization Technology and the Mobile Broadcasting Environment

This paper will focus the unique RF characteristics of the mobile environment and what is needed to support effective and robust transmission to this. In particular, polarization diversity will be explored and options on how to obtain polarization diversity from a transmission system standard will be discussed. The focus will be on broadband master arrays that are both financially rational and future-proof.

Nicolas Villeroy October 3, 2009

A Primer on Passive Intermodulation (PIM)

In this document we will cover several topics related to PIM, including a basic definition of PIM, the effect on a system, measurement techniques, real world causes, and methods of mitigation.

Nicolas Villeroy July 3, 2009

Microwave Backhaul, the conundrum that is African wireless

Despite what some wireless infrastructure suppliers would have the industry believe, Africa is a very different marketplace for wireless communications architectures to the rest of the world. Incredibly varied terrains and network topologies across the continent, coupled with extremes of temperature, and the steady but extremely protracted decommissioning of legacy 2G, and even 3G cell sites, all conspire to make wireless network installation and management in Africa an unusually complex and demanding task.

Nicolas Villeroy July 3, 2009

Field Insertion Loss (Attenuation) Measurement

The purpose of the white paper is to review the different methods of measuring insertion loss in coaxial cable and discuss the uncertainty associated with the measurements.

Nicolas Villeroy April 3, 2009

Overlay strategies for 700 MHz LTE deployments

Implementation of Long Term Evolution (LTE) at 700 MHz in North America calls for a cost-effective and rapid rollout. LTE provides wireless carriers with a common next generation (4G) platform and delivers much higher data rates. Deploying this technology in the 700MHz band allows for more efficient RF propagation and greater structural penetration. However, there are also issues with 700 MHz associated with a multitude of interference scenarios.

Nicolas Villeroy February 3, 2008

TMA Usage in CDMA Networks

Escalating consumer dependence on wireless data networks is placing growing pressure on existing CDMA wireless infrastructure. This is highlighting the role of tower-mount amplifiers as an economical solution for improving BTS receiver sensitivity - thus improving overall network performance and network revenue.

Nicolas Villeroy September 3, 2006

AWS auctions spawn spectrum shuffle

As the FCC re-allocates microwave backhaul spectrum for 3G advanced wireless services, incumbent carriers needing to relocate will seek out flexible backhaul solutions that can be deployed quickly.

Nicolas Villeroy March 3, 2005

Triple-mode ceramic the key in ultra-compact filter research

With the deployment of ‘micro’ base stations and the co-location of multiple cellular services, the challenge is on to fit more and more equipment into a shrinking amount of space. One component that can occupy a significant fraction of base station volume is the RF bandpass filter, increasingly introduced to control interference and improve quality of service

Nicolas Villeroy April 3, 2001

Dual-band in-building wireless networks

Industrial maintenance and safety needs often require multiple communications systems. Getting them to co-exist on one network doesn't have to be costly.

Nicolas Villeroy February 3, 2001

Using Continuously Adjustable Electrical Down-Tilt (CAEDT) Antennas To Optimize Wireless Networks

This paper will address why operators need CAEDT antennas, the benefits that these antennas provide and their ability to solve wireless system problems

Nicolas Villeroy June 3, 1998

A Comparison of Space Diversity and Polarization Diversity Receive Systems for Cellular and PCS

A discussion of advantages and disadvantages of using polarization diversity antennas in cellular and PCS systems