Patent ID: 7620420

Claim:
A signal transmission apparatus for transmitting signals using multiple antenna elements, comprising: a first transmission signal generator configured to convert a first signal addressed to all mobile terminals located in a geographical area into a first transmission signal to be transmitted using a wide area beam pattern; a second transmission signal generator configured to convert a multiplexed signal into a second transmission signal to be transmitted using a prescribed beam pattern, the multiplexed signal including a signal addressed to a specific mobile terminal located in a part of the geographical area and a second signal addressed to all mobile terminals located in the geographical area, the prescribed beam pattern configured to optimize transmission to the specific mobile terminal relative to the wide area beam pattern; a controllable switch configured to switch between a first and a second mode of operations, the first mode of operations including a transmission of the first transmission signal, and the second mode of operations including a transmission of the second transmission signal, the first transmission signal including initial broadcast information describing a plurality of prescribed beam patterns of the second transmission signal, permitting the specific mobile terminal to select a suitable prescribed beam pattern for the specific mobile terminal; first and second weighting adjustors, corresponding to the first and second transmission signal generators, respectively, and configured to weight a corresponding one of the first and second transmission signals so that the multiple antenna elements generate the wide area beam pattern and the prescribed beam pattern, respectively; and a signal synthesizer provided for each of the antenna elements and configured to synthesize the weighted transmission signals, wherein said second transmission signal generator generates the prescribed beam pattern based on a selection of the suitable prescribed beam pattern that has been received from the specific mobile terminal.