US 5,339,184 AGranted

Fiber optic antenna remoting for multi-sector cell sites

AssigneeGTE Laboratories Incorporated

InventorDouglas D. Tang

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Abstract

A base station in a cellular communications system is connected to a plurality of remote cellular sites by a communications link having a base terminal coupled to a remote terminal by two optical fibers. The base terminal receives RF downlink channels from the base station and optically transmits the RF channels as a non-overlapping composite signal to the remote terminal on a first fiber. The RF downlink channels are individually recovered at the remote terminal and distributed to disignated cell sites. The remote terminal also functions to receive RF uplink channels from the cell sites and optically transmit the RF channels as a non-overlapping composite signal to the base terminal on a second fiber. The RF uplink channels are indivicually recovered at the base terminal and forwarded to the base station.

Claims19

Dependent claims

A communication link for transmitting a plurality of radio frequency (RF) downlink signal bands, each including a plurality of RF transmit channels, from a base station to a remote cellular hub, and for transmitting a plurality of RF uplink signal bands, each including a plurality of RF cellular channels, from the remote cellular hub to the base station, comprising:

downlink conversion means for converting each RF downlink signal band to a respective intermediate frequency (IF) downlink signal band;
downlink generation means for generating a downlink optical channel including said IF downlink signal bands;
downlink transmission means for optically transmitting said downlink optical channel over a first optical path;
downlink detection means at the remote cellular hub for detecting the downlink optical channel and recovering said RF downlink signal bands;
uplink conversion means for converting each RF uplink signal band to a respective IF uplink signal band;
uplink generation means for generating an uplink optical channel including said IF uplink signal bands;
uplink transmission means for optically transmitting said uplink optical channel over a second optical path;
and
uplink detection means at the base station for detecting the uplink optical channel and recovering said RF uplink signal bands.

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.