PCS provisioning in the cellular environment

PCS (personal communications services) can be offered in the short term using the cellular infrastructure, where PCS is taken to mean the availability of telecommunications services to car phones as well as handheld pocket size phones operating inside buildings, underground tunnels, shopping plazas or malls, transportation terminals, and other areas with high pedestrian traffic. Due to the propagation characteristics of the radio waves and the nature of the propagation environment in urban areas, there are many locations in today´s cellular license areas that cannot be adequately served by the existing macrocell site antennas. The size and the cost associated with the (macro) cell site equipment, as well as the real estate cost and maintenance constraints, generally prohibit larger macrocell site deployment in desired locations. Microcells offer a viable solution for enhancing cellular coverage while contributing to overall system capacity. Different microcellular implementations including compact base stations, fiber-fed remote antennas, microwave-fed remote antennas, and remote radio systems, along with their implementation and networking issues are considered