Antenna innovation has, naturally, always been fundamental to delivering on the promises of successive mobile network generations. In 5G, it has become particularly diverse and interesting. Technologies such as active antennas and Massive MIMO, which have been evolving for many years, are moving into the mainstream and now operator and vendor labs are looking towards the next wave of enablers of improved coverage and capacity. One effort is taking place within BT’s labs, and focuses on using ‘excited atomic states’ to support hyper-sensitive receivers that could boost 5G coverage, the operator speculates, by 100 times. Such R&D is vital to continuing to stretch the capabilities of 5G to meet evolving user and industry requirements. The 3GPP’s 5G standards can only…