Deselection of antenna elements for avoiding blocking effects

A new technique for improving the performance of indoor distributed antenna systems (DAS) operating in W-CDMA systems is proposed and analysed. This is based on the deselection of an antenna element (or elements), which receives excessively strong signal strength from a nearby user having reached its smallest power control step. This would otherwise result in a potential masking of other users lying at the edge of the cell with the potential of reducing the coverage and capacity of a W-CDMA system. It is found that the proposed scheme significantly reduces the resultant coverage and capacity degradation.