NGMN Alliance has released new guidance aimed at simplifying the procurement, testing, and deployment of base station antennas—a key element in mobile communications infrastructure.
For the first time, the mobile industry now has a unified reference document that establishes a common framework for describing passive, active, and hybrid base station systems. The latest edition of the NGMN Alliance’s "Recommendations for Base Station Antennas" sets out shared terminology and classification rules, helping both operators and suppliers streamline processes and reduce complexity. This step marks a significant milestone as the industry advances toward hybrid antenna systems, which integrate active and passive components to support technologies like 5G more efficiently and flexibly.
“Mobile networks rely on base station antennas to deliver high quality mobile services to consumers and businesses,“ said NGMN Chairman and Orange Group CTO and EVP Networks Laurent Leboucher. “Through this guidance we continue to enable the industry to have a common language to plan, build, operate and maintain critical antenna infrastructure in networks throughout the world.”
The publication, led by NGMN’s BASTA (Base Station Antenna Architecture) project, empowers vendors and operators to more easily share technical information about antenna systems using similar parameters and formats. This makes it easier for operators to evaluate different antennas and thereby facilitates the planning and design of networks. It also helps network engineers to efficiently communicate in later stages in the lifecycle of the antenna systems such as in network operations and maintenance.
“As antenna technology continues to evolve, it is more important than ever to work closely with our partners and the wider industry to ensure we can efficiently adopt these systems in our networks,“ said NGMN Board Director and TIM’s Head of Technology Evolution and Innovation Andrea Calvi. “NGMN’s Base Station Antenna Project (BASTA) has provided the platform for us and our partners to collaborate and agree on the technical parameters that describe modern base station antenna systems” he continued.
The latest release of ‘Recommendations for Base Station Antennas’ is a detailed technical document that defines parameters that describe the electrical, mechanical and Radio Frequency (RF) characteristics of the antenna system.
“Having a common language to describe antennas enables operators and manufacturers alike to save costs and reduce time to market when deploying new antenna infrastructure,” said NGMN CEO Anita Doehler. “These savings are directly attributable to the collaboration enabled by active participation of our membership in NGMN Alliance’s projects”, she added.
The BASTA project team plans to maintain and develop the publication through future versions that will develop the parameter set to continue to align with new antenna technologies. Possible areas for future focus include defining and reporting antenna sustainability parameters (e.g. energy efficiency, carbon footprint etc). NGMN strongly encourages all MNOs and antenna systems vendors to join NGMN and participate in this project. Collaboration is key to driving the industry’s most important topics such as NGMN’s strategic pillars: Operating Disaggregated Networks, Green Future Networks, and 6G. NGMN therefore invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in this important endeavour.
