TE Connectivity supplies DAS to underground system
TE Connectivity today announced that its FlexWave Prism Distributed Antenna System (DAS) has been deployed to provide clear and consistent mobile coverage for multiple mobile operators throughout the Copenhagen Metro subway system. The subway system spans 21 km from the island of Amager to Copenhagen City in Denmark. The TE Connectivity DAS covers the underground section of two nine km parallel tracks as well as eight underground stations in the centre of Copenhagen, providing mobile service in the most important part of the metro system and connecting Copenhagen City to the airport. The Metro and DAS services more than 1,000,000 passengers per week.
The FlexWave Prism system replaces a legacy DAS that was having performance and reliability problems. In addition, the older DAS had active elements in train tunnels – it was necessary to maintain these active elements, however access to the tunnels was severely restricted. The FlexWave Prism system eliminated active elements in tunnels and lowered the number of active elements in the system from more than 50 to 13, significantly reducing maintenance costs while improving reliability. In fact, the Prism remote units are virtually maintenance-free. Another significant saving is the removal of the eight local base station locations deployed throughout the Metro with a central base station hotel, which supports multiple operators from one central location, reducing OPEX and improving reliability.
The new DAS is project managed by Niras, supports GSM900, and can be easily upgraded to support DCS, UMTS-HSPA, and LTE services. The all-digital RF transport throughout the DAS ensures consistent power levels and performance everywhere in the system, no matter how far a remote unit is from its base station. This is a significant improvement of the pervious cascaded system, with improved downlink and uplink signal levels, quality and higher data performance.
“With its combination of stations, tunnels, and elevated trackways, the Copenhagen Metro was an ideal candidate for our FlexWave Prism DAS, and we are honoured that the Danish mobile operators selected our solution for this strategic and important infrastructure in Copenhagen,” said Chris Jurasek, vice president and general manager, Wireless and Services at TE. “Our success in Copenhagen follows other major urban street level and subway deployments, demonstrating that our solution scales to meet the needs of any urban transportation system.”