From events to venues and now macro networks, MatSing lens antennas lower TCO without compromising performance
Privately-owned MatSing, founded in 2006, set out to reinvent how antennas receive and transmit radio waves. Instead of relying on reflection as is common in panel or phased-array antennas, the company uses refraction techniques to bend RF signals through specialized meta-material lenses. This novel approach was intended to “breathe life” into a mature technology category, according to company Executive Vice President Leo Matytsine.
“In a sense, it works like your eye,” he told RCR Wireless News. “Nature is always the best engineer…You can create a large lens, small lens, all different types of lenses, that can send multiple, independent…signals simultaneously.” Watch the full interview with Matytsine below.
The breakthrough moment came as some 200,000 people gathered in the rural California desert for the Coachella music festival. Limited cellular infrastructure and huge demand for capacity created a significant technical problem. Matytsine said the company deployed its lens antenna and, “Everybody was able to connect. That was a way for us to basically prove the technology and the concept.”
MatSing quickly became a mainstay at large-scale outdoor events; the next step was permanence. “We saw the benefit,” Matytsine said. “If we can use these lenses for these large types of festivals…you can apply the same advantages for other environments,” particularly stadiums and arenas.
Instead of complex and costly distributed antenna systems that utilize many antennas, Matytsine described the line of thinking: “It works like a projector. You can create many different beams…Why not put the waves where you put all your other waves?” The company located lens antennas at the top of stadiums alongside sound and lighting equipment — ”That was kind of our transition into venues which has also been quite successful.”
The next frontier for MatSing is carrier macro networks across urban, suburban and rural areas. The timing is opportune as carriers move from an early focus on building out 5G networks to cost-effective densification and expansion that delivers a differentiated end user experience. The company has expanded its product portfolio to include a variety of new lens-based antenna designs suited for a range of carrier deployment scenarios.
Reflecting on the company’s pedigree in demanding festival and venue environments, Matytsine said macro networks are the same challenge just on a different scale. “There’s still a lot of capacity issues throughout the macro network,” he said. By deploying lens antennas on existing cell sites, carriers can deliver multiple, clean RF beams for 4G and 5G.
“The key is that it’s efficient, so one antenna does more,” he said. In rural environments, this means an infrastructure-light deployment can deliver coverage expansion and support new services like fixed wireless access (FWA) for cellular-backed home broadband. And MatSing has proved scalability: Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) company has deployed nearly 2,000 lens antennas to support its FWA rollout.
The key point here is that despite broad interest among network equipment providers in software-based RAN optimizations, there is another route. “In my mind,” Matytsine said, “if your hardware performs really well and you can control the RF really well, you can have a much easier time with capacity/performance where you don’t need to do a lot of optimization and software use…This is fundamentally a different approach to antennas…You can now use new technology with less hardware to provide better results, capacity and performance.”
To improve capacity and performance in your network watch the video and click here to learn more about MatSing.
