In the days leading up to MWC, Airgain, a company that produces embedded components, external antennas, and integrated systems, announced Lighthouse smart repeaters. Airgain said that the repeaters can significantly reduce an operator’s capital expenses for extending range while enhancing 5G coverage and improving customer experience. The repeaters use two Wi-Fi radios, one dedicated to receiving and another to broadcasting signals. This announcement continues Airgain’s streamlined end-to-end 5G development which includes fixed wireless access (FWA), repeaters, and enterprise software management solutions. Airgain begins trial on major operator networks in Q2-2023.

The Lighthouse family includes both low-power small office and home office (SOHO) repeaters and high-power network repeaters for mobile network operators (MNO) and end users. Some of the highlights of the Lighthouse smart repeaters include:

• Advanced carrier aggregation (CA) for FR1-FR1 CA (while futureproofing for FR1-FR2 CA)
• Low latency features in compliance with 3GPP requirements
• Software upgradeability to support 3GPP with network-controlled repeater (NCR) standards

The Lighthouse smart repeaters are equipped with a smart-antenna technology that’s designed to improve the signal-to-interference plus noise ratio (SINR) and shorten deployment times. Lighthouse also includes a software-management stack.

Airgain will showcase the repeaters and other products at Mobile World Congress Barcelona from February 27 through March 2, 2023.