Huawei has released the 5G LampSite which is aimed at bringing 5G and 4G cell coverage to indoor areas such as hotels and shopping centres. According to Huawei, the device can leverage either CAT6A Ethernet or optical fibre cables which were laid during 4G LampSite deployments, allowing for an easy transition.
Ritchie Peng, President of Huawei’s Small Cell Product Line, said:
“Enabling 5G indoor coverage through digital solutions is already accepted as an industry consensus. Our 4G LampSite has been broadly deployed to serve users in airports, shopping malls, and hotels around the world and has received high recognition from operators. Huawei is constantly innovating in the field of indoor coverage. The 5G LampSite supports “four multiples in one” capabilities, which fully reflects the value of digital products and helps operators build indoor coverage in the 5G era more conveniently and efficiently.”
Huawei is pushing the development of the 5G LampSite as a significant breakthrough, explaining that it has been difficult to accommodate upcoming 5G with traditional indoor coverage solutions.
Expanding on this point, Huawei said:
“Take distributed antenna systems (DAS) for example. Signal attenuation is more severe in both air interface and through feeders on the high-band frequencies introduced to 5G. To use DAS in 5G, a large number of head ends need to be added or more close to signal sources RRUs. To support 4T4R, DAS requires three times as many feeders and other devices as the existing 1T1R systems. This is basically impractical and cannot guarantee stable and reliable network performance.”
With regards to the “four multiples in one”, mentioned by Ritchie Peng, the 5G LampSite supports C-Band/sub-3GHz multiple bands, 4G/5G multiple modes, CAT-6A Ethernet/optical fibre multiple transmissions, and eMBB (Enhanced Mobile Broadband), IoT, and navigation services. The 5G LampSite is also the first in the industry to support 4T4R allowing it make use of existing 4G LampSite spots for 5G without altering radio network planning.
Source: Huawei