There is growing demand for private broadband cellular networks from governments, defence, military and search and rescue organizations, institutions involved in public safety and disaster relief, and industries with remote and distributed facilities, such as oil and gas exploration.
These organizations are specifying systems that work with commercial networks and equipment, so they can lower costs by using standard devices (smart phones, tablets) and existing infrastructure to access their private networks.
The concept of a network-in-a-box (NIB) based on the 4G LTE or 3G wireless standard has emerged as a viable solution. This would allow private network owners to use commercially-available devices and SIM cards and leverage the industry-wide knowledge of these kinds of networks for set-up and modification.
The Evolved Packet Core (EPC) of a NIB can communicate with the EPC of commercial networks, providing access to roaming, voice and data services with users outside the private network.
NIB Solution N.A.T. has developed a Network in a Box System for Massive MIMO (MMIMO) networks and scalable phased antenna arrays, including multi-antenna transmission remote radio heads (RRH), that provides RF to baseband processing functionality in a compact, flexible system.
The NIB solution consists of the NAMC-SDR and NAMC-ODSP modules, which can be integrated into a range of N.A.T. system enclosures to provide a complete BTS infrastructure solution in-a-box.
It supports standard and proprietary wave forms, standard and custom firmware, is simple to configure and supports the OpenAir Interface software stack. It is ideal for a wide range of applications, including search and rescue and lawful intercept.