Improving the Capacity of an Existing Cellular Network Using Distributed Antenna Systems and Right-of-Way Cell Sites

For an existing macro-cell wireless network deployment, it is shown how distributed antenna systems (DAS) can be added to improve the capacity. This is demonstrated through a set of experiments using a cdma2000 1xEV-DO outdoor test network on licensed spectrum with commercial reference devices and infrastructure equipment. DAS was used to add small cell sites at locations consistent with right-of-way deployments (e.g., light poles, traffic lights), and cell sites were added within both the interior and handoff regions of the existing macro network. For the case where the small cells were enabled as pico-cells, significant gains in capacity were found as a result of the cell- splitting and offloading of traffic demand onto the DAS sites, as well as the improved coverage within nearby buildings. Furthermore, when the smalls cells were configured to allow for centralized processing, additional performance gains were measured (1) when the downlink admits simultaneous transmission of pilot and data across remote sites, as well as for (2) when the uplink allows soft combining and interference cancellation across remote sites. These results were achieved using commercially available equipment at the DAS hub.