Help Stop a Thief – PIM

Passive Intermodulation (PIM) is a thief in wireless networks, stealing coverage, capacity and performance. Wireless operators need to protect their networks with an assortment of PIM prevention methods. Selecting the right equipment, site audits and sound installation practices all help reduce PIM. Learn more about PIM and CommScope’s PIM-guard portfolio in this blog by Jeff Epstein.

Tower-climber-compHow do you protect your home and family from thieves? It’s likely you do a lot of things – you lock the doors and windows, maybe have an alarm system, perhaps there’s a loud dog who roams the house, or there might even be security cameras around the exterior.

The same security measures go for protecting your network, too. Passive Intermodulation (PIM) is a thief. PIM steals capacity from your network. A drop of 1 dB in uplink sensitivity due to PIM can reduce wireless coverage by more than 10 percent in a macro network, according to common estimates. PIM can be caused by poor connections, water infiltration, loose metal hardware and many more sources. And just as you protect your home in a variety of ways, you need to protect your network with an assortment of PIM prevention methods. Selecting the right equipment, site audits and sound installation practices all help reduce PIM.

CommScope has introduced the PIM-Guard ecosystem of installation accessories to mitigate PIM at the top of towers - composite cable hangers and adapters, as well as cable support and RRU mounting brackets that do not introduce PIM at the tower top. CommScope has a long-standing history of excellence in developing solutions to optimize radio frequency (RF) performance as well as solutions for network cable management in many applications.

Composite cable hangers are available in four different sizes supporting a wide variety of cable diameters at the tower top, may be stacked three-high to streamline cable management and are commercially available. Adapters, RRU mounting brackets and cable support brackets that won’t introduce PIM in your network, fill out the PIM-Guard family.

Protect your family from burglars. Protect your network with the PIM-Guard family of products. And learn even more about PIM in chapter seven of our newly updated “Understanding the RF Path” ebook.