Editor’s Note: With 2013 now upon us, RCR Wireless News has gathered predictions from leading industry analysts and executives on what they expect to see in the new year.
1. Smarter mobile infrastructure: Mobile operators are being squeezed by decreasing revenues per user, and a seemingly insatiable demand by users for more data. To efficiently manage the rapidly growing increase in data traffic in their networks, mobile operators need to build and improve their infrastructure in a much smarter way.
2. A new focus on antennas for base stations: Base stations antennas, long regarded as a cheap commodity, will get a revival with so-called ultra high-efficiency antennas. They can achieve a higher signal strength, increase in area coverage, improved indoor penetration, increased traffic, improved data throughput and reduced production costs per call.
3. A quest to reduce signal wasteage: For the same reason, mobile operators will look for ways to deal with sub-optimal transmission and to find solutions that do not “waste” the signal on areas outside their focus area, and that block all interference.