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TE Connectivity has announced that its CPRI Digital Interface Unit (CDIU) is beginning to make substantial progress in making an impression on projects across the United States, particularly with mobile operators.
The innovation has allowed the firm to cut distributed antenna system (DAS) installation time, as well as equipment and operating costs in key deployments. In fact, the deployment of a digital base station-to-host connection with CDIU can, according to TE, reduce physical equipment by over 50 per cent, while material costs can be pushed down by 40 per cent. Meanwhile, energy costs can be cut by as much as $100,000 (£67,000) per year in large venues.
Innovation inspiring widespread use
TE's CDIU works by establishing a direct digital connection between Alcatel-Lucent base states and its own DAS host unit. The main advantage of using this approach is that it eliminates remote radio heads, radio-frequency conversions, and racks of attenuation panels in a DAS head-end.
The advantages that come with the use of a CDIU have not gone unnoticed by the US market, with the product being used in a range of recent projects at venues including the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York, Mizzou Arena at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio and Washington State University's Martin Stadium in Pullman.
In all of these venues, a CDIU has been deployed with TE's FlexWave digital DAS platform using both high-power and low-power remote units, driving both high- and low-power remote antennas from the same host unit.
It means that both mobile operators and neutral host operators have the flexibility to use DAS uniquely and use CDIU at any site.
Simple to use
Cost is not the only major advantage of CDIU; there is also little need to worry about installation and deployment as the process is, according to TE, greatly simplified.
A plug-and-play interface means the setting up of a CDIU-to-DAS connection is an operation that takes only a few minutes, bringing an end to the multiple days spent cabling and installing racks of attenuators.
Not that performance, testing and commissioning is in any way compromised as operators can use the CDIU to generate a carrier waveform tone that makes it easy to optimise and troubleshoot the system.
Peter Wraight, president of TE's Wireless business unit, said: "CDIU is a great example of how TE works with mobile operators and base station manufacturers to lower costs and simplify DAS deployments.
"With industry firsts like CDIU, we are continually pushing DAS evolution into the future, and that's why mobile operators prefer our solutions for their most demanding applications."
