Nokia has deployed Australia’s first Interleaved Passive Active Antenna in Brisbane, in collaboration with Optus.
The IPAA tower sits in Yeerongpilly, Brisbane and is intended to help “ease site-related challenges which accelerates the introduction of 5G services across the country.
“Long delays in acquiring permission for site upgrades; the potential strengthening of the supporting structures and potential higher rental payments to landlords, can in combination seriously delay operators, such as Optus, in getting 5G services to their customers,” Nokia explains.
The tower will allow Optus and other operators to upgrade existing sites to 5G with a simple antenna replacement.
“The IPAA is an advanced technical solution to tackle the problems of finding space on towers and rooftops for 5G upgrades,” explains Rob Joyce, Chief Technology Officer of Australia and New Zealand at Nokia. “Operators can now simply replace an existing antenna with Nokia’s IPAA solution to upgrade the site and at the same time, introduce 5G; it couldn’t be simpler.”
Lambo Kanagaratnam, Managing Director of Networks at Optus, said the IPAA will “help us speed up the deployment of our 5G network by addressing space and structural capacity constraints.”