Pivotal Commware announced commercial availability of Pivot 5G™, a smart network repeater that redirects, extends and shapes service coverage outdoors, substantially reduces total cost of ownership and speeds time to revenue for network operators.
“The Pivot 5G significantly closes the mmWave coverage gap by giving operators a new way to position coverage on specific clusters of subscribers, rather than a general geography,” said Brian Deutsch, CEO of Pivotal Commware.
Pivot 5G is one component of Pivotal Commware’s mmWave ecosystem based on Holographic Beam Forming (HBF), which solves mmWave’s most vexing challenges and turns the perceived weaknesses of mmWave propagation into strengths, according to the company.
The mmWave ecosystem expands mmWave coverage in public spaces, homes and enterprises as part of 5G networks like Verizon’s 5G Ultra-Wideband. By extending the range of costly, fiber-connected base stations, Pivot 5G reduces the capital, operating and siting costs of deploying more base stations to achieve the same coverage and performance.
Alongside the Pivot 5G outdoor repeater, the Echo 5G™ smart indoor repeater helps mmWave indoor coverage, to provide subscribers with superior connectivity speeds.
A network operator's entire ecosystem can be planned by WaveScape™, a network modeling tool that provides precise placement of network elements such as repeaters and 5G base stations to optimize connectivity for subscribers and minimize the total cost of ownership for the operator.
Finally, Pivotal’s Cloud-native Intelligent Beam Management System (IBMS) uses machine learning to extract insights and optimize the network in real time.
“Pivot is a key player in the mmWave ecosystem we designed to support our claim of ‘mmWave solved.’ We are helping to deliver on the promise of 5G by enabling operators to cost-effectively accelerate their mmWave network rollouts and deliver a superior 5G user experience with the gigabit speeds their customers expect,” said Deutsch.
A key differentiator of Pivotal’s ecosystem is its patented HBF technology. HBF enables its software-defined, precision beamforming repeaters to harness, shape and direct radio waves with order-of magnitude advantages over legacy beamforming systems comparing cost, size, weight and power consumption.
Joe Madden, chief analyst at Mobile Experts, said, “Deploying a mmWave network for indoor coverage is an expensive challenge for operators using fiber-based gNodeB units. Repeaters will play a role in opening up 5G mmWave coverage indoors, without the staggering cost of fiber-based solutions on every streetlight in town. We calculate that repeaters can save more than 70 percent of the cost of alternatives and can shave months or even years off the deployment timeline.”