Base stations and methods for facilitating dynamic simulcasting and de-simulcasting in a distributed antenna system

A method operational on a base station, comprising:

• conveying respective transmit signals from each of a plurality of base station sector controllers to a base station simulcast controller module;
• providing the transmit signals from the base station simulcast controller module to a plurality of antenna ports communicatively coupled to respective remote antenna units, wherein at least two remote antenna units are employed for simulcasting downlink transmissions as a simulcasting group;
• and
• receiving at respective base station sector controllers uplink transmissions from the two or more remote antenna units via respective antenna ports without passing the uplink transmissions through the base station simulcast controller module, wherein the uplink transmissions are de-simulcasted and associated with one or more uplink diversity branches of a particular sector identity (ID).

A base station apparatus, comprising:

• means for conveying respective transmit signals from each of a plurality of base station sector controllers to a base station simulcast controller module;
• means for providing the transmit signals from the base station simulcast controller module to a plurality of antenna ports communicatively coupled to respective remote antenna units, wherein at least two remote antenna units are employed for simulcasting downlink transmissions as a simulcasting group;
• and
• means for receiving uplink transmissions at respective base station sector controllers from the two or more remote antenna units employed for simulcasting downlink transmissions via respective antenna ports without passing the uplink transmissions through the base station simulcast controller module, wherein the uplink transmissions are de-simulcasted and associated with one or more uplink diversity branches of a particular sector identity (ID).

A non-transitory machine-readable medium comprising instructions operational on a base station, which when executed by a processor causes the processor to:

• convey respective transmit signals from each of a plurality of base station sector controllers to a base station simulcast controller module;
• provide the transmit signals from the base station simulcast controller module to a plurality of antenna ports communicatively coupled to respective remote antenna units, wherein at least two remote antenna units are employed for simulcasting downlink transmissions as a simulcasting group;
• and
• receive uplink transmissions at respective base station sector controllers from the two or more remote antenna units via respective antenna ports without passing the uplink transmissions through the base station simulcast controller module, wherein the uplink transmissions are de-simulcasted and associated with one or more uplink diversity branches of a particular sector identity (ID).