Tag Archives: Massive MIMO

Cell-Free Distributed Massive MIMO bibliography

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CF-DMM is the next big thing in telecom, often doubling or tripling capacity in the next few years. We need a good non-technical introduction even if I have to write it myself.

The most comprehensive source is Foundations of User-Centric Cell-Free Massive MIMO by top researchers Özlem Tuğfe Demir, Emil Björnson, and Luca Sanguinetti. It’s a 316 page book you can download for free https://arxiv.org/pdf/2108.02541.pdf. The introduction does a good job explaining how mobile networks work today and how Cell-Free would change them.

Artemis/pCell has put together this list of over 100 articles.

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5X Advance for Africa with Massive MIMO, Spectrum

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In 2014, Stanford Professor Paulraj told me MU MIMO would be the most effective way to deliver the capacity Africa needed. In 2016, the first Massive MIMO systems were deployed by Softbank Japan and China Mobile. The results were excellent. Softbank reported “up to a 10X improvement.” Huang Yuhong of China Mobile told me 3X was more typical, which she considered an exceptional result.

Since 2016, Massive MIMO
is the right choice

This note is over-simplified, of course. Wireless networks are extremely complicated and results vary enormously with terrain. I wanted to write something because both academics and network builders have told me Massive MIMO, 4G or 5G, should almost always be on the table planning networks were wires are few.

Massive MIMO also can lead to the effective doubling of primary wireless spectrum. Without MIMO, 2.5 GHz spectrum was in limited use. Midband 3.3GHz to 4.2 GHz was impractical for wireless networks. With the greater performance of Massive MIMO, 2.5 GHz has become golden spectrum that is delivering America’s best network at T-Mobile. 90%+ of 5G worldwide is midband, with superior speeds.

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