Socowave antenna technology improves internet over mobile

Licensing opportunity

Socowave Ltd has made an advance in wireless network technology that could significantly improve the delivery of video and other bandwidth-heavy applications over cellular networks, and reduce the number of base stations required at the same time.

The company says its active panel antenna (APA) technology will enable faster internet access and allow future networks to be designed with fewer base station sites, reducing base station electricity consumption by up to 50 per cent.

The technology is of interest to infrastructure vendors and mobile network operators that are preparing to migrate to fourth generation (4G) LTE and mobile WiMax networks. These will provide far higher data transfer rates than current networks.

Socowave says its technology improves the quality of the wireless link between mobile user and cellular network, increasing effective data rates by up to ten times. The company’s founder Joe Moore says it allows the network operator to provide near fixed-line quality to mobile users. “Before now, the network had no way of knowing where the user’s signal came from, and therefore when service deteriorated, could not take corrective actions to improve the reception.” With Socowave’s technology the network can actively optimise the wireless link to each user, even if they are all on the move and reception conditions are changing.

Socowave, is backed by Enterprise Ireland, and headquartered in NovaUCD, the Innovation and Technology Transfer Centre at University College Dublin. Its technical design centre is located at the National Software Centre, Cork.