Radio over fibre networks for mobile communications

Distributed antenna systems based on radio over fibre technology (fibre DAS) are becoming increasingly popular for providing cellular radio coverage within large buildings such as shopping centres, airports and corporate office blocks. The main limitation with fibre DAS, however, is its lack of flexibility for providing tailored radio coverage in multiservice or multi-operator environments. A new architecture, switched DAS, is proposed for these situations, which leads to both capital and operational cost savings as well as much greater operational flexibility.