ASYMMETRICAL BEAMS FOR SPECTRUM EFFICIENCY

摘要

A method and apparatus for increasing capacity and performance of a base station for a sectorized cellular wireless network is disclosed in which one of the sector antennas is replaced or supplanted by a novel sub-sector ante nna that generates a plurality of asymmetrical sub-sector coverage areas tha t collectively substantially cover the coverage area of the replaced sector antenna. The use of asymmetrical coverage areas permits the total coverage a rea to closely approximate the symmetrical sector coverage area without crea ting excessively large sub-sector handover zones or introducing severe degra dation in the network performance. This in turn permits the selective replac ement of a single sector antenna rather than the wholesale replacement of al l sector antennas in a region, leading to lower transitional costs and the a bility to provide a focused approach to capacity planning.