ompared with a conventional copper antenna, and antenna dimensions are SO small that they're easily mounted inside a handset. "The antenna is a cornerstone of all wireless products, yet the technology has changed little in decades and remains inefficient, inflexible, and problem- atic to design", says Colin Ribton, an Antenova spokesman. "High dielectric antennas completely transform the situation, opening up unprecedented new potential for all wireless products-from phones and terminals to LAN and base station infrastructure." According to Antenova, HDA not only improves the size and performance of antennas, it enables completely new design possibilities. These include the first practical approach to incorporating "antenna diversity" into products, greatly enhancing signal strengths and with it data communications per- formance. Directionality is another possibility, which may be used to foster coexistence of multiple protocols on equipment, to add spatial multiplexing of spectrum, to increase the capacity of wireless networks, and to reduce electromagnetic radiation directed toward users. Antenna diversity would also allow broadband antennas to be specifically designed to mobile phones or in extremely narrowband versions to eliminate the conventional need for SOMETHING IN THE AIR-RADIO AND LOCATION TECHNOLOGIES external pass-band filters. The antennas themselves can be as small as one- tenth the size of a conventional product, as well as much more sensitive. Effi- ciencies as high as 70 or 80 percent are easily achievable, claims Antenova. Antenna diversity simply means using two or more antennas rather than one, says Ribton. "With this form of antenna, next-generation phones can actu- ally achieve the headline-making 3G services everyone has been talking about for years," he says. "Our trials show that two antennas can improve data recep- tion speeds by fourfold. That equates to the difference between making an ordinary voice call and experiencing a video conference." Antenova has also constructed a tool suite