Long distance and high bandwidth wireless link tests for a 39GHz to 28GHz 5G low-cost repeater

This paper presents a low-cost millimeter-wave repeater as range extender in a 5G fixed wireless access system. It simply converts the wireless fronthaul signals in the 39GHz band to the wireless access signals in the 28GHz band while omitting any base-band signal processing. Initial outdoor over-the-air tests with a simplified setup proved that easily a sufficient linearity can be achieved even over long fronthaul link length. Moreover, high bandwidth measurements with multi-carrier Verizon pre-5G test signals demonstrated excellent EVM values with high signal-to-noise ratios enabling the required high data rates.