METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR COLLECTOR ARRAYS OF DIRECTIONAL ANTENNAS CO-LOCATED WITH ZONE MANAGERS IN WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS

The present invention is a communication system having a plurality of forward channel communications and a plurality of corresponding reverse channel communications in a region for communications with cellular users. Each region includes a plurality of zone managers. Each zone manager includes a broadcaster having a broadcaster transmitter for broadcasting a plurality of forward channel communications using broadband broadcaster signals to form a plurality of broadcaster forward channels. Each zone manager includes an aggregator for processing reverse channel communications. Each zone manager communicates with a collector group for receiving reverse channel communications from users and forwarding reverse channel communications to the aggregator. Each of the users includes a user receiver for receiving a different forward channel from said broadcaster and includes user transmitter means for broadcasting user reverse channel communications in a different user reverse channel. The collector group for each zone manager is formed of macro-diverse collectors some of which are located at other zone managers. By having collectors co-sited at zone manager sites, the macro-diverse collector operations are possible while reducing the installation cost of collectors.