Mobile Phone Technology

Most mobile masts, in busy areas, are arranged to receive and send data within a 120 degree sector. These masts will have 3 aerials mounted equally around the mast. This created the hexagonal cell structure pictured in articles. This is great when the demand for the services are equally space throughout the area, the hexagon.Having all cells hexagonal makes for simplifies cell management.

But there are a number of areas where spreading the signal equally over the sector makes little sense and the signal needs to be targeted. For example if the signal is designed to be send up and down a railway then a signal tuned to this direction only makes sense. Equally if in a FWA scenario, the 'target' is a small hamlet then it is a waste putting signal over some fields. So it is possible to target the presumed demand for the service from a particular mast where there is an assumed need. This is a static solution to the issue of unequal demand over an area.

Beamforming within 5G is a more dynamic feature that works with MIMO. The direction of the beam can change (or formed) to target higher areas of demand and dynamsically react in real-time to this demand. Within beamforming it is also possible to track a user with a high data demand.