Patent ID: 8706165

Claim:
An apparatus for use in a multi-sector omni-radio base station providing radio communications coverage for a geographic site area that is divided into a plurality of sectors, comprising: multiple sector antenna units, each sector antenna unit providing radio communications coverage for a particular sector that differs from the sectors covered by others of the multiple sector antenna units, and each of the multiple sector antenna units having an antenna for transmitting downlink transmissions and for receiving a carrier signal associated with a receive antenna frequency in an available frequency band; a frequency converter for frequency converting the carrier signal received by one of the multiple sector antenna units from the receive antenna frequency to a respective frequency different from the receive antenna frequency; and a splitter/combiner for: receiving a downlink signal with a total transmission power and splitting the downlink signal into a plurality of identical split signals to be transmitted by the multiple sector antenna units, each of the split signals having a respective portion of the total transmission power of the received downlink signal, where each of the sector antenna units transmits its respective split signal at a same base station transmit frequency with the respective portion of the total transmit power; and combining in the uplink direction carrier signals received from multiple different sectors by corresponding ones of the multiple sector antenna units to create a composite signal containing information received from multiple different sectors for communication to the multi-sector omni-radio base station, wherein at least two of the carrier signals associated with the multiple sector antenna units and combined in the combiner are at a different frequency.