What’s New in iBwave Design Release 12

Doesn’t it seem like forever since we first heard about 4G? It feels like the technology has been around for centuries. And even though it’s only been a decade since 4G was first rolled out, that’s a lifetime in the wireless industry. People have been anticipating the next step of evolution in wireless connectivity for a long time.

Well, it’s finally here.

iBwave Design Release 12 brings 5G NR design capabilities to the in-building wireless table – and a standardized method to tackling this new wireless technology.

Here’s a look at what iBwave Design R12 includes:

5G Design Capabilities

mmWave Bands

New in iBwave Design R12 is support to design your wireless systems for new mmWave bands: 26GHz, 28GHz, 31GHz, 39GHz, as well sub 6GHz bands. Check out this 5G antenna pattern.

5G NR Output Maps

Validate the quality of coverage for dense broadband connectivity with new SS-RSRP and SS-SNIR 5G output maps, as well as MADR and SNIR-PDSCH maps for 5G.

5G Prediction

Enable 5G RF prediction and validation with mmWave and Sub 6ghz spectrums (Propagation Module)

Advanced Analysis for 5G Antenna Placement

Optimize 5G antenna placement with consideration for potential surrounding interferences (Optimization Module).

5G Database Components

You’ll also have access to new 5G components in our database to help kick start your next generation of 5G designs.

Not only does iBwave Design 12 offer 5G capability, it also comes with DAS component modeling improvements that make modeling 10 times faster with service grouping templates.

3D Modeling Enhancements

Diagonal Drawing

Easily design square sections of a building at an angle with the new diagonal drawing tool. You can now more efficiently model odd-shaped buildings as well as add a reference angle to be able to measure and relate antenna azimuth.

“My favourite new feature in iBwave R12 is diagonal drawing because it allows me to quickly and accurately draw walls not at 90 degree angles – no more guess work. Projects are now completed and ready for the engineer at a quicker rate than previous versions.”
— RF Engineer, iBwave User

Curved Walls

Benefit from significant time savings with the ability to design curved walls (especially useful for stadium modeling) making your 3D model that much more accurate to real-life and as a result, your predictions also more accurate.

Stop Walls at Incline

R12 brings simplified wall drawing under inclined surfaces – you now have the ability to easily draw walls and adjust their height against inclined surfaces, making your model and predictions more accurate.

DAS Component Modeling Improvements

Service grouping templates is a new feature that allows you to create automated groups for your DAS components. Rather than manually enter each of your connections by service, create a service grouping template to automate the process and save loads of time.

To see the full list of new features, check out our What’s New page.

Feature Spotlight: iBwave Reports

It’s time for another iBwave Feature Spotlight!

In this piece, we’ll be looking at four key reports within iBwave’s network design software. No, these aren’t the type of reports you submit to a professor. These are automatically generated reports which can provide you with essential information when designing in-building networks.

Equipment List

You’ve designed your in-building wireless network and now it’s time to compile a list of all the vendor equipment you’ve used within the design itself. The list might be long: radios, cabling, cable trays, switches, routers, controllers, and so on – in other words, the bill of materials.

You can do it the hard way: manually input each cable, antenna, router and transceiver in a spreadsheet until your eyes glaze over and you’ve aged a decade. Or, you can do it the iBwave way: with the Equipment List Report!

In just one click, the Equipment List Report will generate an overview of all network components required to complete your design. The data can then be exported and shared with project stakeholders in the file format of your choice (PDF, Word Doc, PowerPoint, etc.). Not only does it make it easier for you, your clients will appreciate knowing exactly what equipment is needed to complete their network design.

The bottom line? Manually creating an equipment list is not only time consuming, but also prone to human error. The Equipment List report will help save time on tedious tasks so you can focus on more demanding duties.

Cost Details

Now let’s talk about everyone’s favorite subject: budget allocation!

You’ve used the Equipment List Report to compile the network equipment needed to complete your design, now it’s time to calculate an accurate cost breakdown with the Cost Details Report. Not only can you use this tool to customize your equipment list to include pricing for each piece of equipment, you can also add additional project costs to the report such as labor and construction costs, mark-ups, and more.

The Cost Details Report also gives you control over what information you share with your customers and project partners. Keep things on a need-to-know basis by choosing whether mark-up percentage or construction costs are visible to your client or not on the final report. And just like the Equipment List Report, you can extract your Cost Details Report in the file format most convenient to your company and customers.

Leave the numbers to us. iBwave’s Cost Details Report will make short work of complex calculations.

Access Points

Your building wants wireless access and wants it NOW! But before you go placing access points in every nook and cranny of your network, try iBwave’s Access Points (AP) report.

The AP report will give your customers an all-in-one document that outlines everything they need to know about their building’s AP placement. In addition to displaying the location of APs on your building’s floor plan, it will also tell you which channel and band your access points are operating on. You can share the report with the design and installation teams in multiple file formats so they can be easily reviewed.

Many of our customers have seen first hand how the Access Points report saved them both time and money. If the goal is to have complete wireless connectivity in your in-building network design, give the Access Points report a whirl and see how easy it can be to accomplish.

Output Maps

Some people just want to look at pretty pictures.

iBwave’s Output Maps Report generates heat map visualizations that convey everything you need to know about your in-building wireless design, all in one convenient document.

But these pictures aren’t just pretty, they’re essential! The Output Maps Report will display heat maps of your network design’s predicted performance, providing useful information such as the network’s average data throughput rate per user, signal strength, SNR, co-channel interference and capacity pass/fail rates. It even allows separate heatmaps based on frequencies used, so you can compare the output of 2.4 GHz vs. 5 GHz and add KPI requirements for each as needed.

Just like the Equipment List, Cost Details, and Access Points report, the Output Maps Report exports in the file format of your choice. Notice the trend? No matter the report, you’ll be able to share it easily with those that need it.

These are just a few of the reports iBwave software can generate. In a future piece, we’ll cover another batch of useful reports.

And there you have it! Thanks for reading another installment of the iBwave Feature Spotlight series.

New Feature! Quick Connection Tool

In the newest release of iBwave Wi-Fi a new feature was introduced called the ‘Quick Connection Tool’. And if you often do the cabling in your designs, this is a feature you’re going to appreciate.

What does it do?

It completely automates the cabling of your sources to your APs, enabling you to cable your designs in just seconds whereas before it could take up to an hour or more, depending on the size and complexity of the venue you are working with. For many of our customers, this is a new feature that offers big time savings.

Here’s how it works.

Using the example floor plan of an office space, we can see the placement of the source (switch), the access points, and cable trays (purple lines) on the floor plan.

Note: quick connection tool can be used with or without the cable route defined already, in this case I have placed cable trays which the tool will use to automatically route the cables.

From here, it’s quite simple – simply click on the ‘Quick Connect Tool’ icon from the menu, which presents you with this screen:

Next, you need to do a few things to tell the tool how to connect.

Select your source (in this case the switch)
Select the APs to connect to
Select the cable trays through which the cables should connect (optional)
Select the cable from the smart list of acceptable cables (i.e the software will suggest cables based on your source/APs)

Here is what it looks like…

And voila, you now have your sources/destinations connected – from here you can simply run a Bill of Materials or Cost Details to get a report/estimate of your network design parts.