Reducing 5G Deployment Costs Using Holographic Beam Forming Repeaters from Pivotal Commware

The 5G trade media has criticized millimeter wave (mmWave) buildouts as too expensive, requiring “hundreds of thousands of new cell sites, each one plugged into a super-fast backhaul connection and topped with thousands of dollars of new transmission equipment.” Analysts like Moffett Nathanson have questioned the ROI of deploying mmWave networks at scale. These are fair criticisms. But deploying fewer base stations augmented by network repeater technology based on Holographic Beam Forming® (HBF) tells a different story. This paper shows how two HBF repeater products – Pivotal Echo 5G™ and Pivot 5G™ – deployed in conjunction with base stations, i.e., gNBs, reach more subscribers at less cost than deploying gNBs alone.

Importantly, this analysis focuses on indoor mmWave coverage, where 100% of fixed traffic and about 80% of mobile traffic occurs. Most of the applications best served by mmWave’s ultra-low latency and high capacity, like AR/VR telepresence, will primarily occur indoors.