Patent ID: 7043270

Claim:
A system for sharing a cellular tower among multiple service providers comprising: an antenna having an array of elements arranged in columns of multiple elements and operable to define multiple, individual beams by controlling elements of the columns, for handling signals of at least two individual service providers in a common, analog RF communication frequency band; converter circuitry to convert the antenna signals associated with the beams between the common RF communication frequency band and a common digital IF band representing the signals of the at least two service providers; circuitry for duplicating the common digital IF band; digital filtering circuitry for processing the duplicated digital IF band and defining individual portions of the respective duplicated digital IF bands, such that a separate band portion is defined for signals of each of the at least two individual service providers; signal processing circuitry for each of the at least two service providers, the signal processing circuitry operable to process channel signals associated with the individual digital IF band portions defined for the individual service providers and to simultaneously drive the antenna to define at least one individual beam for each individual service provider, with at least one of the defined beams being steerable in at least one of azimuth and elevation.