FORWARD-PATH DIGITAL SUMMATION IN DIGITAL RADIO FREQUENCY TRANSPORT

• US 20140146906A1
• Filed: 11/26/2013
• Published: 05/29/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 11/26/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Outdoor Wireless Networks LLC (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: ADC Telecommunications Incorporated (TE Connectivity Limited)
• Inventors: Zavadsky, Dean, Forland, Jody, Fischer, Larry G., Wala, Philip M.
• Granted Patent: US 9,367,828 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 375/267
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/022 Site diversity; Macro-diversity using two or more spaced independent antennas H04B7/04

Abstract

A distributed antenna switch includes a plurality of first interfaces, each of the plurality of first interfaces configured to receive a downlink serialized data stream from a different network interface across a different first digital communication link; at least one second interface, the at least one second interface configured to communicate an aggregate downlink serialized data stream to a remote antenna unit over a second digital communication link; and wherein the distributed antenna switch is configured to aggregate the plurality of downlink serialized data streams from the different network interfaces into the aggregate downlink serialized data stream.

Claims

1. A distributed antenna switch comprising:

a plurality of first interfaces, each of the plurality of first interfaces configured to receive a downlink serialized data stream from a different network interface across a different first digital communication link;

at least one second interface, the at least one second interface configured to communicate an aggregate downlink serialized data stream to a remote antenna unit over a second digital communication link; and

wherein the distributed antenna switch is configured to aggregate the plurality of downlink serialized data streams from the different network interfaces into the aggregate downlink serialized data stream.

2. The distributed antenna switch of claim 1, wherein the at least one second interface is further configured to receive an aggregate uplink serialized data stream from the remote antenna unit over the second digital communication link;

wherein each of the plurality of first interfaces is further configured to communicate a uplink serialized data stream to the different corresponding network interface across the different corresponding first digital communication link; and

wherein the distributed antenna switch is further configured to split the aggregate uplink serialized data stream into each of the uplink serialized data stream.

3. The distributed antenna switch of claim 1, wherein the distributed antenna switch is configured to aggregate the plurality of downlink serialized data streams from the different network interfaces by being configured to map timeslots from each of the plurality of downlink serialized data streams to timeslots within the aggregate downlink serialized data stream.

4. The distributed antenna switch of claim 3, wherein the timeslots from each of the plurality of downlink serialized data streams are interleaved within the aggregate downlink serialized data stream.

5. The distributed antenna switch of claim 1, wherein at least one first interface of the plurality of first interfaces is configured to receive a second aggregate downlink serialized data stream, wherein the second aggregate downlink serialized data stream is one of the plurality of downlink serialized data streams aggregated into the aggregate downlink serialized data stream.

6. The distributed antenna switch of claim 1, wherein at least one first interface of the plurality of first interfaces is configured to receive a second aggregate downlink serialized data stream;

wherein the distributed antenna switch is further configured to extract at least a first downlink serialized data stream from the second aggregate downlink serialized data stream; and

wherein the first downlink serialized data stream is one of the plurality of downlink serialized data streams aggregated into the aggregate downlink serialized data stream.

7. The distributed antenna switch of claim 1, wherein the downlink serialized data stream received from at least one different network interface across at least one different first digital communication link is a serialized baseband data stream.

8. The distributed antenna switch of claim 7, wherein the serialized baseband data stream includes quadrature samples of I/Q pairs.

9. The distributed antenna switch of claim 1, wherein the at least one second interface includes a plurality of second interfaces, each of the plurality of second interfaces configured to communicate corresponding aggregate downlink serialized data streams to corresponding remote antenna units over corresponding second digital communication links.

10. The distributed antenna switch of claim 1, wherein the downlink serialized data stream received from at least one of the different first digital communication link includes serialized digital radio frequency signals representing a radio frequency band communicated by a base station.

11. The distributed antenna switch of claim 1, wherein the downlink serialized data stream received from at least one of the different first digital communication link is a second aggregate downlink serialized data stream including serialized digital radio frequency signals representing a plurality of radio frequency bands communicated by a plurality of base stations.

12. The distributed antenna switch of claim 1, wherein the downlink serialized data stream received from at least one of the different first digital communication link includes Ethernet frames from an internet protocol network.

13. The distributed antenna switch of claim 12, wherein the Ethernet frames are used for wireless local area network (WLAN) backhaul.

14. The distributed antenna switch of claim 12, further comprising an Ethernet network switch configured to extract Ethernet frames from the at least one downlink serialized data stream received from at least one of the different first digital communication link, the Ethernet network switch further configured to route a subset of packets from the extracted Ethernet frames into the aggregate downlink serialized data stream by integrating the subset of packets into the aggregate downlink serialized data stream.

15. The distributed antenna switch of claim 14, wherein the Ethernet network switch is further configured to route a second subset of packets form the extracted Ethernet frames into a second aggregate downlink serialized data stream by integrating the second subset of packets into the aggregate downlink serialized data stream, wherein the second aggregate downlink serialized data stream includes a plurality of downlink serialized data streams from the different network interfaces.

16. The distributed antenna switch of claim 1, wherein at least one first digital communication link is a fiber optic cable.

17. The distributed antenna switch of claim 1, wherein the second digital communication link is a fiber optic cable.

18. A method of aggregating serialized data streams in a distributed antenna switch, the method comprising:

receiving a plurality of downlink serialized data streams from a first plurality of digital communication links;

aggregating the plurality of downlink serialized data streams from the different network interfaces into an aggregate downlink serialized data stream; and

communicating the aggregate downlink serialized data stream to a remote antenna unit over a second digital communication link.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein aggregating the plurality of downlink serialized data streams from the different network interfaces into the aggregate downlink serialized data stream includes mapping timeslots from each of the plurality of downlink serialized data streams to timeslots within the aggregate downlink serialized data stream.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the timeslots from each of the plurality of downlink serialized data streams are interleaved within the aggregate downlink serialized data stream.

21. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

wherein receiving a plurality of downlink serialized data streams from a first plurality of digital communication links includes receiving a second aggregate downlink serialized data stream; and

wherein aggregating the plurality of downlink serialized data streams from the different network interfaces into an aggregate downlink serialized data stream includes aggregating the second aggregate downlink serialized data stream with at least one other downlink serialized data streams into the aggregate downlink serialized data stream.

22. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

wherein receiving a plurality of downlink serialized data streams from a first plurality of digital communication links includes receiving a second aggregate downlink serialized data stream;

extracting at least a first downlink serialized data stream from the second aggregate downlink serialized data stream; and

wherein aggregating the plurality of downlink serialized data streams from the different network interfaces into an aggregate downlink serialized data stream includes aggregating the first downlink serialized data stream with at least one other downlink serialized data streams into the aggregate downlink serialized data stream.

23. The method of claim 18, wherein at least one of the plurality of downlink serialized data streams is a serialized baseband data stream.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the serialized baseband data stream includes quadrature samples of I/Q pairs.

25. The method of claim 18, further comprising communicating the aggregate downlink serialized data stream to a second remote antenna unit over a third digital communication link.

26. The method of claim 18, wherein receiving a plurality of downlink serialized data streams from a first plurality of digital communication links includes receiving a serialized digital radio frequency stream from at least one of the first plurality of digital communication links, wherein the serialized digital radio frequency stream represents a radio frequency band communicated by a base station.

27. The method of claim 18, wherein receiving a plurality of downlink serialized data streams from a first plurality of digital communication links includes receiving a second aggregate downlink serialized data stream including serialized digital radio frequency streams representing a plurality of radio frequency bands communicated by a plurality of base stations.

28. The method of claim 18, wherein receiving a plurality of downlink serialized data streams from a first plurality of digital communication links includes receiving a serialized Ethernet frame stream from at least one of the first plurality of digital communication links, the serialized Ethernet frame stream including Ethernet frames from an internet protocol network.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the Ethernet frames are used for local area network (WLAN) backhaul.

30. The method of claim 28, further comprising:

extracting the Ethernet frames from the serialized Ethernet frame stream; and

routing a subset of packets from the extracted Ethernet frames into the aggregate downlink serialized data stream by integrating the subset of packets into the aggregate downlink serialized data stream.

31. The method of claim 30, further comprising:

routing a second subset of packets from the extracted Ethernet frames into a second aggregate downlink serialized data stream by integrating the second subset of packets into the second aggregate downlink serialized data stream, wherein the second aggregate downlink serialized data stream includes a plurality of downlink serialized data streams received from the first plurality of digital communication links.

32. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

receiving an aggregate uplink serialized data stream from the remote antenna unit over the second digital communication link;

splitting the aggregate uplink serialized data stream into a plurality of uplink serialized data streams; and

communicating the plurality of uplink serialized data streams through the first plurality of digital communication links.

33. The method of claim 18, wherein receiving the plurality of downlink serialized data streams from a first plurality of digital communication links includes receiving at least one of the plurality of downlink serialized data streams from at least one of the first plurality of communication links across a fiber optic cable.

34. The method of claim 18, wherein communicating the aggregate downlink serialized data stream to a remote antenna unit over a second digital communication link includes communicating the aggregate downlink serialized data stream to the remote antenna unit over a fiber optic cable.

35. A distributed antenna switch comprising:

a first interface configured to receive a first downlink serialized data stream from a first network interface across a first digital communication link;

a second interface configured to receive a second downlink serialized data stream from a second network interface across a second digital communication link;

a third interface configured to communicate an aggregate downlink serialized data stream to a remote antenna unit over a third digital communication link; and

wherein the distributed antenna switch is configured to aggregate the first downlink serialized data stream and the second downlink data stream into the aggregate downlink serialized data stream by mapping first timeslots from the first downlink serialized data stream and second timeslots from the second downlink serialized data stream to third timeslots within the aggregate downlink serialized data stream.

36. The distributed antenna system of claim 35, wherein the timeslots from the first downlink serialized data stream are interleaved with timeslots from the second downlink serialized data stream within the aggregate downlink serialized data stream.