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TensorComm files MIMO-related patent

Jul 31, 2006 3:26 PM, By Donny Jackson

Wireless technology company TensorComm today announced that it has filed a patent application to extend its Interference Cancellation Technology (ICT) to networks using MIMO.

The solution currently is available for CDMA, WCDMA and HSDPA networks. Today’s announcement is TensorComm’s first step into improving the efficiencies of 4G technologies, TensorComm founder and CEO John Thomas said.

“It’s becoming very clear to us that interference is going to be an issue in all those networks,” Thomas said, mentioning WiMAX and WiBRO by name. “We are entering those arenas through this patent we just filed on MIMO, so we feel that’s our path to those types of networks.”

ICT is a receiver technology designed to cancel interference from all sources except the “signal of interest,” Thomas said. Although ICT can be deployed in the base station to improve uploads from client devices, the technology is expected to be most popular on devices where it can improve users’ download experiences, he said.

“The impact is that, if you cancel all the interference, then the data transfer between the base station and this terminal goes up pretty significantly,” Thomas said. “Testing has shown we can increase the data rate anywhere from 50-80%.

“From the network operator’s perspective, you’re not resending packets that didn’t make it the first time, so you’re not being inefficient with your infrastructure and spectrum. In other words, you’re increasing the capacity of your network by doing this.”

In addition to delivering greater data throughput, other ICT performance benefits include increasing the number of users per base station and the range of each base station.

“In some trials, we were doing up to a 6 decibel performance improvement, and we feel like getting a sustained 2 decebel gain is very doable,” he said. “As you know, even a half a decebel, companies spend a lot of time and effort to get that. So what we’re offering is a very significant jump in performance relative to that.”