History

In September of 2007, IPTV veterans began exploring business opportunities with an eye on helping large edge IP network operators, such as apartment buildings, hospitals, and hotels effectively become their own cable/telecom providers.

Current market and economic factors made alternative satellite and wireless television programming sources highly desirable for the target market, but the high costs of existing downlink receiver technologies with sufficient flexibility were prohibitive. Phased array receivers are the natural antenna solution for this application, but new beamforming technologies were needed to meet myriad and complex antenna specifications and cost requirements for television signal ingest.

Linear Signal, Inc. was organized shortly thereafter and a beamforming research and development team was formed to address and reduce core beamforming cost drivers: phase shifters, digital signal processing, and numbers of antenna elements.

A low cost, analog beamforming chip was designed that performs both phase and amplitude shift functions. This hybrid solution combines analog beamforming with the capability for digital control and drastically reduces the costs of beamforming for both wideband and many-element array applications. The technology (Ad-A-Beam™) offers positive cost impacts to many wireless products and services beyond those originally contemplated for linear media delivery.