6 ms·

I'm all for more innocuous cell antennas. I'm just not convinced in this case. Just looking at the picture it seems neither innocuous nor particularly transpare

by kurthr 2y ago

I'm all for more innocuous cell antennas. I'm just not convinced in this case. Just looking at the picture it seems neither innocuous nor particularly transparent even thought it's on glass. Maybe they can make the connections less apparent without exposed coax, and maybe they won't need to add (extra) windows on top of windows, and maybe they can make the conductive areas more transparent, but this is only useful as a proof of concept. Let's see what they can do for a commercial product. Usually, there are tens of antennas on a single tower so they can't all look like this. Also, I'm going to assume that you have to keep anyone from getting within 3 meters just due to radiated emissions, so don't go just looking out that window!

juancn 2y ago
Do you mean inconspicuous? - innocuous: not harmful - inconspicuous: not clearly visible or attracting attention
- Bjartr 2y ago
  I think it can be used as "non-objectionable" or "non-irritating" which would still work here
  - furyofantares 2y ago
    Sure although the article says inconspicuous and transparent and the comment it saying it's neither of those things.
- asveikau 2y ago
  The harm considered here is being conspicuous. So you could make an argument for either term.
- stackghost 2y ago
  Innocuous also means inoffensive, which is apt here.
- m463 2y ago
  Innocuous means producing no injury or harm, or not likely to give offense or arouse strong feelings. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innocuous https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innocuous
jauntywundrkind 2y ago
The transparency is hard to judge from this one photo, where there's a flat background to it and a line or two. This seems not at all unreasonably subtle to me. Even with the array of feeder lines, yeah, maybe it's not for very high end stash places but for most places this seems ay okay. Given what the alternatives are for urban and commercial spaces, this feels like a big win. My main concern is power level. How much power can you emit if Joe in accounting is 8 feet away from it, and how does that compare versus normal building mounted or pole mounted antennas? Also, what frequencies is this antenna designed for; it seems like 5g can run on lots of spectrum; is this mmWave gear or lower? Apologies for soapboxing, but I want to chip in my belief that this world is driven by those who see possibility & potential.
- Swizec 2y ago
  > Apologies for soapboxing, but I want to chip in my belief that this world is driven by those who see possibility & potential. Cynics never lose but optimists win.
  - iwontberude 2y ago
    Sometimes the only winning move is not to play.
- generic92034 2y ago
  > My main concern is power level. How much power can you emit if Joe in accounting is 8 feet away from it, and how does that compare versus normal building mounted or pole mounted antennas? My thoughts exactly. Who would like to sit that close to a 5G Base Station?
- vel0city 2y ago
  > My main concern is power level. How much power can you emit if Joe in accounting is 8 feet away from it That was my first takeaway from the photo from outside. The kinds of antennas they put on top of buildings routinely run many hundreds to a thousand watts or more of power directionally out into the city. That's fine when you're putting it on equipment outside the building on a controlled access roof pointing away from the occupants in the building. Everyone actually in the beam pattern is going to be far away from the active elements. This design doesn't seem to be incredibly directional especially outwards. You're not going to be able to run much power on that antenna, and now you're going to have it on the inside of metallized glass. A lot of that energy is going to stay in the building. I wouldn't want the desk next to this if it's going to run even 100W. Just asking to get some good RF burns.
smsm42 2y ago
I don't think it needs to be fully invisible. There are a lot of places in the building where slightly darkened glass panel would not look too out of place, as opposed to a bulky ugly opaque plastic box. Especially if architects really work on integrating it, it can be made very unobtrusive without needing 100% transparency. And, in a lot of buildings there are glass panels which aren't within the foot traffic areas - high windows, ceilings, technical areas, etc.
- me-vs-cat 2y ago
  > Especially if architects really work on integrating it How long will be the useful life of these antennas be, compared to the useful life of a building that is still early enough in planning for significant integration?
- bmicraft 2y ago
  > as opposed to a bulky ugly opaque plastic box I've never heard a single person complain about wall/ceiling mounted WiFi access point. Do you really think this is something that justifies the added complexit
  - smsm42 2y ago
    But this is not wifi, this is mobile antenna, they are usually significantly more bulky. I have no idea if it's justified on the sum of all things, I'm just saying it's a viable idea.
avianlyric 2y ago
This is a commercial product, that’s actually been installed and being used. The magic here is a “transparent” antenna. The magic is a carefully tuned, small and innocuous antenna, that when mounted on a window it’s been tuned for, allows 5G to easily propagate through the glass. Glass facades almost universally use Low-E glass to avoid turning the building into a huge greenhouse. Problem for 5G, is that low-e glass is remarkably good at blocking 5G frequencies[1]. Pair that with 5G smaller propagation distances, and issues of finding viable locations to mount 5G antenna becomes a real problem. This product neatly solves that problem by allowing carriers to mount these antenna on the inside of a buildings facade, while providing coverage outside the building. Which will substantially reduce the cost and difficulty of installing 5G masts. You can place all your sensitive equipment in normal building voids, without the need for bulky and ugly weather proofing, and you need to break the buildings weather tight seals (which a landlord isn’t gonna let you do without significant assurances you’re going the cover the costs of any water that comes through) to run cables to external antenna. To make all of this viable, someone has had to do a fair bit of work to figure out how to build an antenna that effectively incorporates the low-e window it’s attached to, into its RF design. The fact the physical antenna is made of glass and partial transparent isn’t actually the interesting part. That’s likely been done because glass is a very rigid material that will make it easy to ensure the conductive parts of the antenna are kept at a specific distance from the window it’s mounted on, to ensure the correct RF coupling occurs. [1] https://www.ranplanwireless.com/gb/resources/low-e-glass/ https://www.ranplanwireless.com/gb/resources/low-e-glass/
- erikerikson 2y ago
  See also the Pivotal Commware[0] repeater solution. [0] http://www.pivotalcommware.com/ http://www.pivotalcommware.com/
- SOLAR_FIELDS 2y ago
  I like that this also solves the problem of historically there being bad reception in between really tall buildings downtown. If you can embed towers in the facade of a building this problem is significantly reduced.
- venusenvy47 2y ago
4star3star 2y ago
> turns a window into a base station that can be attached to a building window inside and turn the outdoors into a service area You could easily enclose this by some architectural feature on the interior of the building or even use a window that's off the back of a maintenance closet.
- avianlyric 2y ago
  Sure if you’ve designed the building around housing an antenna. But I don’t think carriers want to pay the cost of major architectural changes to buildings, so they can better incorporate new 5G antenna.
Reason077 2y ago
> “Usually, there are tens of antennas on a single tower so they can't all look like this. Also, I'm going to assume that you have to keep anyone from getting within 3 meters just due to radiated emissions” Those towers you see with lots of antennas are massive MIMO installations designed for very high capacity and coverage over a wide area. But not all sites need to look like that. In this case, it’s just a small cell designed to improve coverage within a building and/or on a few local streets. Power levels are also much lower, not all that much different to a WiFi base station. People aren’t going to get cooked if they get close to it.
aaron695 2y ago
[dead]
homero 2y ago
That's the connector. You're missing the fact that it uses the entirety of the rest of the window

by kurthr 2y ago

juancn 2y ago

Do you mean inconspicuous? - innocuous: not harmful - inconspicuous: not clearly visible or attracting attention

Bjartr 2y ago
I think it can be used as "non-objectionable" or "non-irritating" which would still work here
- furyofantares 2y ago
  Sure although the article says inconspicuous and transparent and the comment it saying it's neither of those things.
asveikau 2y ago
The harm considered here is being conspicuous. So you could make an argument for either term.
stackghost 2y ago
Innocuous also means inoffensive, which is apt here.
m463 2y ago
Innocuous means producing no injury or harm, or not likely to give offense or arouse strong feelings. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innocuous https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innocuous

jauntywundrkind 2y ago

The transparency is hard to judge from this one photo, where there's a flat background to it and a line or two. This seems not at all unreasonably subtle to me. Even with the array of feeder lines, yeah, maybe it's not for very high end stash places but for most places this seems ay okay. Given what the alternatives are for urban and commercial spaces, this feels like a big win. My main concern is power level. How much power can you emit if Joe in accounting is 8 feet away from it, and how does that compare versus normal building mounted or pole mounted antennas? Also, what frequencies is this antenna designed for; it seems like 5g can run on lots of spectrum; is this mmWave gear or lower? Apologies for soapboxing, but I want to chip in my belief that this world is driven by those who see possibility & potential.

Swizec 2y ago
> Apologies for soapboxing, but I want to chip in my belief that this world is driven by those who see possibility & potential. Cynics never lose but optimists win.
- iwontberude 2y ago
  Sometimes the only winning move is not to play.
generic92034 2y ago
> My main concern is power level. How much power can you emit if Joe in accounting is 8 feet away from it, and how does that compare versus normal building mounted or pole mounted antennas? My thoughts exactly. Who would like to sit that close to a 5G Base Station?
vel0city 2y ago
> My main concern is power level. How much power can you emit if Joe in accounting is 8 feet away from it That was my first takeaway from the photo from outside. The kinds of antennas they put on top of buildings routinely run many hundreds to a thousand watts or more of power directionally out into the city. That's fine when you're putting it on equipment outside the building on a controlled access roof pointing away from the occupants in the building. Everyone actually in the beam pattern is going to be far away from the active elements. This design doesn't seem to be incredibly directional especially outwards. You're not going to be able to run much power on that antenna, and now you're going to have it on the inside of metallized glass. A lot of that energy is going to stay in the building. I wouldn't want the desk next to this if it's going to run even 100W. Just asking to get some good RF burns.

smsm42 2y ago

I don't think it needs to be fully invisible. There are a lot of places in the building where slightly darkened glass panel would not look too out of place, as opposed to a bulky ugly opaque plastic box. Especially if architects really work on integrating it, it can be made very unobtrusive without needing 100% transparency. And, in a lot of buildings there are glass panels which aren't within the foot traffic areas - high windows, ceilings, technical areas, etc.

me-vs-cat 2y ago
> Especially if architects really work on integrating it How long will be the useful life of these antennas be, compared to the useful life of a building that is still early enough in planning for significant integration?
bmicraft 2y ago
> as opposed to a bulky ugly opaque plastic box I've never heard a single person complain about wall/ceiling mounted WiFi access point. Do you really think this is something that justifies the added complexit
- smsm42 2y ago
  But this is not wifi, this is mobile antenna, they are usually significantly more bulky. I have no idea if it's justified on the sum of all things, I'm just saying it's a viable idea.

avianlyric 2y ago

This is a commercial product, that’s actually been installed and being used. The magic here is a “transparent” antenna. The magic is a carefully tuned, small and innocuous antenna, that when mounted on a window it’s been tuned for, allows 5G to easily propagate through the glass. Glass facades almost universally use Low-E glass to avoid turning the building into a huge greenhouse. Problem for 5G, is that low-e glass is remarkably good at blocking 5G frequencies[1]. Pair that with 5G smaller propagation distances, and issues of finding viable locations to mount 5G antenna becomes a real problem. This product neatly solves that problem by allowing carriers to mount these antenna on the inside of a buildings facade, while providing coverage outside the building. Which will substantially reduce the cost and difficulty of installing 5G masts. You can place all your sensitive equipment in normal building voids, without the need for bulky and ugly weather proofing, and you need to break the buildings weather tight seals (which a landlord isn’t gonna let you do without significant assurances you’re going the cover the costs of any water that comes through) to run cables to external antenna. To make all of this viable, someone has had to do a fair bit of work to figure out how to build an antenna that effectively incorporates the low-e window it’s attached to, into its RF design. The fact the physical antenna is made of glass and partial transparent isn’t actually the interesting part. That’s likely been done because glass is a very rigid material that will make it easy to ensure the conductive parts of the antenna are kept at a specific distance from the window it’s mounted on, to ensure the correct RF coupling occurs. [1] https://www.ranplanwireless.com/gb/resources/low-e-glass/ https://www.ranplanwireless.com/gb/resources/low-e-glass/

erikerikson 2y ago
See also the Pivotal Commware[0] repeater solution. [0] http://www.pivotalcommware.com/ http://www.pivotalcommware.com/
SOLAR_FIELDS 2y ago
I like that this also solves the problem of historically there being bad reception in between really tall buildings downtown. If you can embed towers in the facade of a building this problem is significantly reduced.
venusenvy47 2y ago

4star3star 2y ago

> turns a window into a base station that can be attached to a building window inside and turn the outdoors into a service area You could easily enclose this by some architectural feature on the interior of the building or even use a window that's off the back of a maintenance closet.

avianlyric 2y ago
Sure if you’ve designed the building around housing an antenna. But I don’t think carriers want to pay the cost of major architectural changes to buildings, so they can better incorporate new 5G antenna.

Reason077 2y ago

> “Usually, there are tens of antennas on a single tower so they can't all look like this. Also, I'm going to assume that you have to keep anyone from getting within 3 meters just due to radiated emissions” Those towers you see with lots of antennas are massive MIMO installations designed for very high capacity and coverage over a wide area. But not all sites need to look like that. In this case, it’s just a small cell designed to improve coverage within a building and/or on a few local streets. Power levels are also much lower, not all that much different to a WiFi base station. People aren’t going to get cooked if they get close to it.

aaron695 2y ago

[dead]

homero 2y ago

That's the connector. You're missing the fact that it uses the entirety of the rest of the window