Introduction to Same Band Combining of UMTS & GSM

Same Band Combiners (SBC) are RF modules designed for combining cellular base stations with the same or different technologies in a similar frequency band to a common antenna. Examples of technologies which can be combined using this technique include:

GSM + GSM
UMTS + UMTS
GSM + UMTS
GSM + LTE,
UMTS + LTE
TDMA + GSM
IS95 CDMA + 1X/3X EVDO etc.

The advantage of using a SBC is that infrastructure such as feeders, tower mounted amplifiers and antennas can be shared by multiple base stations or node-Bs. This means less equipment is required per sector with the benefits of lower operational & capital expenditure (opex/capex) as well as more efficient use of tower space.