Monday 27 August 2012

Selecting 4G antennas

Interestingly, selecting a 4G antenna in Europe is not going to be as straightforward as selecting a 3G antenna has been. Due to 4G services being offered on a variety of frequency bands, customers will need to be aware at what frequency their 4G service is operating and what frequencies their antenna supports. Broadly speaking, 3G operates at the 2100 MHz across the whole of Europe which has made antenna selection quite straightforward.

For example, quite a number of operators across Europe have licences to run 4G services between 2500-2700 MHz otherwise known as the 2600 MHz band (countries such as Austria, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden for example).  Not many 2G/3G antennas operate at 2600 MHz meaning that new antennas are required for customers migrating to 2600 MHz 4G services and antenna manufacturers have to otpimise their antennas to cover 2G/3G/ and 4G in one antenna. Currently, 2600 MHz antenna options for SOHO (small office/home office) are quite limited though vendors are moving quickly to plug this gap.

Alternatively in the UK, Everything Everywhere (formerly Orange & T-Mobile) has been given the go ahead by Ofcom to offer 4G services at 1800 MHz. This means that current European 2G/3G antennas already support the required frequency band for this 4G service. So customers have a wide choice of antenna solutions available to them.

Other frequency bands being considered for European 4G services include 800 MHz whilst the USA has LTE services operating in the 700 MHz.

In conclusion, customers will need to be sure of their frequencies or purchase a very wideband antenna to facilitate operation of their devices with 4G antennas.

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