Ask anyone in the know and they’ll tell you that coverage and capacity are the two most important factors determining the quality of cell phone signals in any given area. Coverage refers to the ability to access a strong signal from a particular location, while capacity refers to the number of devices that can be on the same network without compromising each other’s connection. Nextivity focuses far more on coverage than on capacity, and with good reason: almost all cellular connectivity issues are issues of coverage, and, even when this is not the case, cellular coverage is also capable of boosting cellular capacity.
This may seem strange to those unfamiliar with the nature of cellular signals. After all, if these two factors are the most important for cellular connectivity, why does increasing cellular coverage increase capacity as well, while increasing capacity does nothing for coverage? It all comes down to how coverage affects the throughput of a signal. Throughput is the measurement of how many individual pieces of information are carried by the signal in one trip to and from the base station. Every cellular signal contains a certain amount of information, stored in very small pieces for transmission. The base station’s job is to make sure each of these pieces of information is sent to the correct device, a process that can be complicated by the introduction of noise.
Noise, in the context of signals, isn’t just unwanted sound; it’s any sort of unwanted modification to the signal. Noise is often the result of interference of varying kinds, adding unwanted information to the signal that isn’t meant for any device. A well-designed base station can sort out the noise from the correct information and still send you a clean signal, but if there is too much noise the base station is forced to decrease the amount of total information sent in order to make it easier to sort out the clean information from the noise. This is what we would call a decrease in throughput, or, in more technical terms, a Lower Order Modulation Scheme.
This is where Nextivity comes in: With our smart cellular signal booster DAS, we use donor antennas to capture signals when they’re at their clearest and redistribute them throughout the interior of a building. With a clearer signal, there is less unwanted information for the base station to sort through, allowing it to send more information through at a time, achieving a Higher Order Modulation Scheme. With more available “space” within the signal, the base station can send and receive information from more devices, since it no longer needs to worry as much about sorting the real data from the noise.
“Dumb” repeaters attempt something similar by simply boosting the gain of the signal, but this can have disastrous consequences. Every wireless device has a “noise floor,” a metaphorical line in the sand where any piece of information below a certain level of signal strength is ignored. This is usually effective at negating the worst of noise, since many sources of noise aren’t particularly powerful. However, when you increase gain on a signal, you make every part of that signal more powerful, including the noise within it. Too much gain and you can surpass the noise floor of the base station and start adding every single bit of noise from that device to the base station signal, flooding it with unwanted information that it must sort through and negatively impacting its capacity.
Nextivity’s smart signal booster DAS avoids this issue with the use of our proprietary IntelliBoost® technology, which allows to the DAS to boost a signal while making sure that any added noise is below the base station’s noise floor. This prevents the base station signal from suffering the effects of any added noise, keeping the signal clear and capacity high.
Who benefits from increased capacity? Well, other than the people trying to connect to networks with lots of people on them, the main benefactors of a high-capacity cell signal are the network operators, those who built the base stations and the network to which they’re connected. Big cell service providers such as AT&T and Verizon are examples of network operators. But why do they get so much out of a higher-capacity signal? That’s because their profit relies on people using their network: the more people that are connected at once, the more profit an operater is making from that location.
It’s in no small part due to Nextivity’s ability to boost capacity as well as coverage, all without added noise, that we have such a great relationship with the network operators with whom we work.
