4G roll-out is worrying a lot of people as the equipment and systems infrastructures may not really be ready to deliver the full benefits.
I have just been asked to look at some PIM issues after rather too many years in project management (rather than hands-on electronics and design) so I jumped online to see what all the noise was about (pardon the pun) and it seems that the new 4G roll-out is worrying a lot of people as the equipment and systems infrastructures may not really be ready to deliver the full benefits due to them already being pushed to the technical limit, creating complex performance issues, as well as an aging installed base that may have also degraded over time.
Some reportage suggests that in theory the issues are not huge, but then you also read that many manufacturers are pushing their R&D into fast-forward to provide complex filter systems and the like - to enable reasonable performance to be achieved with older equipment under the challenging new 4G environment. These sound like real “sticking plaster on top of sticking plaster” solutions, but probably immediately essential as 4G is already here and the licensees will need to deliver on their license fees ASAP – albeit that the licenses were acquired at rather a knockdown price. It worked for Hubble so perhaps this is just the nature of such capital-intensive fast-moving technologies?
It seems that the term “PIM” is being used as a catch-all term to incorporate just about all the other passive noise and distortion issues that have historically affected transmission lines, so rather masks the individual causes and nature of the problems actually seen in the field. Just because it has a catch-all name does not mean it has a catch-all solution.
How are operators/installers expected to deal with these issues when there are multiple root causes? There is not a single “PIM filter” that you just plug-in that will fix all your problems in one go and allow flat-out 4G performance over old infrastructure, so it looks like a rolling plan of upgrading will be required where new installations and installed-base system repair/updates must provide substantially better hardware (and increasingly software) to enable the best use of bandwidth if the industry is to approach the potential traffic capability intended under the 4G specification. The most refreshing new product I have seen in the fight against the problem of PIM is Hughes Electronics new Low Pim Connector design. It is a direct replacement for the 7/16th connector so legacy compatible and is completely harmonic and external interference free. From what I have seen it will present the industry with one of the most powerful weapons in the fight against PIM yet.
Ed Vaizey, minister for culture, communications and creative industries is currently driving a consultation on mobile connectivity with the Mobile Operators Association (MOA) which is expected to result in the relaxation of some planning regulations re-transmitter masts locations and sizes and no doubt other “big buck” changes to systems infrastructure will be addressed internally, but it should not be forgotten that systems integrity and performance is limited by the “weakest link” in the chain and that could be the cabling and connector systems employed within the basic infrastructure. This is often of pretty variable quality, regardless of the official specification.
So, it may be that for installers and specifiers, a bottom-up approach could pay substantial dividends, as without a decent infrastructure, the whole system will be severely constrained and expectations of massive traffic handling will fall at the first hurdle even if implementing those highly expensive, high technology “sticking plaster” solutions.