CCI’s Dual Technology Antenna Sharing Combiner (ASC) allows two Base Stations to share the same antennas and preserves Receive Diversity without any combining losses. In the Downlink direction, the transmit signal from each Base Station is directed to one of the two antenna ports. In the uplink direction, an Amplifier compensates for combining losses normally associated with passive combiners. The Gain of the amplifier can be controlled remotely using AISG 2.0 Protocol, and the gain level to each BTS can be independently controlled.

The ASC system consists of a twin outdoor tower mount unit with two antenna inputs. The tower mount unit is dual duplexed to separate the low-power uplink signal from the high-power downlink signal at the antenna port, amplifies the low-level uplink signals using an ultra-low noise amplifier (LNA), and recombines the two paths at the BTS port. In addition, the uplink signal is split out after the LNA and routed to the BTS diversity port. The tower mount units consist of six band-pass filters, four redundant low-noise amplifiers, two splitters, bypass failure circuitry, and bias tee’s which are all housed in an IP65 moisture proof enclosure, with IP68 Immersion proof connectors suited to long-life masthead mounting. The unit provides protection against lightning strikes via a multi-stage surge protection circuit. AISG 2.0 DC power and control is provided via the feeder cable from the BTS using the AISG 2.0 and 3GPP standard. The ASC is powered through the UMTS (BTS-1) port. Additionally the ASC operates at constant power when powered by an AISG 2.0 Compatible Site Control Unit, or BTS. A separate AISG connector is also provided to allow direct AISG connection or “Daisy Chaining” to multiple AISG products at the top of the tower. With fully protected input ports, the unit can be installed without the concern of damaging the unit should it be incorrectly installed.