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America applauds CELLFLEX ‘A’ From coast to coast, US cellular OEMs and installation crews are enthusiastically embracing RFS’s enhanced base station feeder cable. In the quest for improved wireless coverage and services, operators across the United States are embarking on a broad program of infrastructure upgrades, and this has created an ever-increasing demand for high quality feeder systems. Increasingly, many operators and OEMs are turning to Radio Frequency Systems. Just under a year after its July 2003 global launch, the ‘A’ series of CELLFLEX feeder cable is proving itself well suited to meet the range of RF performance and field installation requirements of modern American cell sites. And the word is fast spreading. Corridor to performance The CELLFLEX ‘A’ series is winning over new and existing RFS customers across the US, says Chris Adams, RFS Area Product “The needs of the project were simple. They wanted the best possible material for RF transmission, without compromising mechanical performance. They also wanted a product that they were comfortable using,” explains Adams. In CELLFLEX ‘A’, the companies found an optimal feeder cable solution, offering reduced transmission losses, while having enough similarities to the more familiar CELLFLEX products to minimize further training. Preferred approach In the last few years, the US RF market has demonstrated a substantial shift in attitude towards feeder systems. The previous focus was largely on the performance of antennas and, to some extent, the filtering and combining equipment. “In the minds 10 FEEDER SYSTEMS Manager for Transmission Lines. The success is attributable to the fact that the cable has achieved an improved attenuation profile without sacrificing mechanical properties, while maintaining tooling and connector compatibility with the popular preceding technology—the RFS standard CELLFLEX series. Adams adds, “We’re finding that many of those who have had a chance to review the product are now opting to make the ‘A’ series their preferred cable product. In Central America too, a number of customers are assigning it a ‘priority’ status.” Recently, the ‘A’ series feeder cable was selected for a large-scale project in the Boston area where two major personal communication service (PCS) operators have formed a joint venture to fill in coverage gaps or ‘holes’, particularly along highways. In the early stages of the project, it was necessary for both companies to fundamentally agree on a feeder cable product, which could accommodate immediate and future capacity improvements. of many, cable was cable, and there really were no differences,” Adams remarks. By contrast, today there is a clear imperative to look closely at the performance of the transmission line system. “If you don’t minimize losses in the feeder cable, then the best overall performance for the transmission system won’t be realized.” All components of RFS’s CELLFLEX ‘A’ series have been designed with a view to ensuring the best possible performance for the entire transmission line. Adams points out that this is a new approach, a change from the days in which, “cable people only focus on cable, and connector people only focus on connectors.” He adds that RFS is now going beyond cables and connectors, and is looking, for example, at optimizing the performance of the jumpers at the cable ends, cable related accessories and installation tooling. Beyond performance metrics, however, there is another factor behind the growing appeal of the ‘A’ series— the often-overlooked impact on site installation. In the US, the fact that CELLFLEX ‘A’ connectors are backwards compatible with the original CELLFLEX connectors is a very attractive feature of the RFS system. Adams says, “It is important to cater to the needs of the guys in the field— they’re the ones who have to deal with any problems. So, we’re doing a lot of different things to make them happy.”
RFS reels off rural success in Sweden Quality, service and innovative cable reel solutions are behind the selection of RFS as a key feeder supplier to Sweden’s UMTS roll-out. The last thing that Torbjörn Zadig wants is for those building Sweden’s third generation (3G) cellular infrastructure to be left out in the cold. Zadig is Contract Manager for the 3G Infrastructure Services (3GIS) group, responsible for implementing universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS) services in Sweden’s non-metropolitan areas. With several thousand base stations to be constructed in a narrow time-frame, the fast and efficient delivery of equipment to site is a priority. “We have thousands of people building the network for us. We don’t have a minute to spare,” he says. The challenges for the suppliers of base station feeder systems are particularly Zadig says that the need for 3GIS to keep costs down means that there is much pressure placed on logistic support. “We require that suppliers take full responsibility for the logistic processes: from confirming the order with the contractors, cutting the cable, and making sure that the cable arrives at the site in due time,” he explains. Speed is also a major factor; deliveries are based on a five-day lead time and the cables have to arrive at each site pre-cut. “We don’t want the contractor to purchase a cable drum of 500 metres, then take it to a local storage and cut the cable to the dimension that they want—we don’t have time to do that,” says Zadig. has been supplying 3GIS with feeder systems (mostly 1-5/8 inch CELLFLEX feeder cable and jumpers) over the last year, and in November 2003, 3GIS extended the agreement and selected RFS to supply these products for its roll-out in the southern half of Sweden. Martin Buhl, Senior Sales Manager for RFS Denmark, attributes this decision to RFS’s approach to service, and the development of a unique cable supply solution. Buhl explains that RFS and its local distributor, Elproman, raised the issue of how best to supply feeder cable with a number of Swedish antenna installation companies: “They explained that they had waste cable and empty FEEDER SYSTEMS 11 significant. The higher frequency (2100 MHz) signal used for UMTS means greater diameter feeder cables are required to minimize attenuation. For 3GIS, quality is important, but overall service is critical: the cable needs to arrive at site in a way that is convenient for contractors to handle, and which also minimizes waste. As a result, Radio Frequency Systems was recently selected as a key feeder systems supplier to the 3GIS project. Rapid roll-out 3GIS is a joint venture between Vodafone Sweden, Orange Sweden and 3 Sweden. While the rival operators have separate UMTS network infrastructure in the main cities, Sweden’s very stringent 3G license requirements (almost 99.8 per cent population coverage once the rollout is completed) compelled them to cooperate in rural areas. Even so, the scale of the task ahead is impressive: the roll-out constitutes one of Sweden’s largest ever industrial projects. To ensure the fastest turnaround, the feeder cables arrive at each 3GIS site, in lengths pre-cut for the site. These are provided on purpose-built cable drums that can be strapped to a pallet for easy transportation, then easily dismantled afterwards. Unique service As it turns out, RFS is able to meet 3GIS’s requirements of taking full logistic responsibility for deliveries, while providing cable pre-cut to length. RFS drums that they couldn’t get rid of, so we asked the factory to engineer an alternative solution.” Buhl points out that now RFS can not only provide pre-cut cable lengths, but it also has developed a cable drum that can be strapped to a pallet (and thus lifted by a normal truck lift) for easy transportation, and which can also be easily dismantled afterwards. “Nobody thought about these easy-to-dismantle drums beforehand—it has proved to be a real advantage,” he says. Finally, according to Buhl, the specific design of RFS’s feeder cable makes it eminently suitable for use in Sweden’s harsh climate. “There are very low temperatures in the winter time, and most cables become quite stiff and difficult to bend,” he says. “The advantage of the CELLFLEX cable jacket is that it is well suited for these conditions and easy to install even in the extreme cold.”
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