lightRadio: a new promise for DAS

Base Station on the palm of your hand

Here is a paradigm shifting technology from Alcatel-Lucent (ALU)… lightRadio. A Base Station that fits in the palm of your hand. It’s generating bold, disruptive titles such as: “The tiny cube that could save wireless”, “lightRadio shoves a base station in a box”, “End of Mobile Towers?” – and they are all legitimate claims or predictions.
Even bigger news is that is not a concept anymore.  Telefonica, whose customers are in 25 countries across Europe and Latin America, announced the first live test of the 4G network over lightRadio, and the cube was supporting 1,000 users at the last Mobile World Congress of 2012 in Barcelona in February.

I am illustrating some basic configuration block diagram of lightRadio cube based on the information provided by ALU.

QR Code in DAS: is it feasible?

QR Code is an interesting new technology. Invented in Japan, QR is short for Quick Response. They can be read quickly by a smart phone by using QR reading apps. They can store more information than a standard bar code; such as URL links, Latitude and Longitude, text (upto 250 characters) etc. Another advantage over bar code is that you won't need a separate hand-held scanner, by using QR reading apps on your smart phone you will be able to read them.

Here is an example...

This is a QR Code for a text phrase, "Relax! It's On Air". I used a free QR generator at Kaywa. For reading this QR I use a free Android app "Qr Barcode Scanner" on my Smasung Galaxy S2. There are other free QR Generators as well as readers available. [To learn more about this technology, you can read Marc Lyne's article or check out the USA Today article, "What's a QR code and why should you care?".]

Can we use QR code for DAS industry?
We are exploring a few options in a current DAS project in a large healthcare campus expected to be completed in a month.