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IN-BUILDING COVERAGE
ISSUE 03 2014
one of Europe’s largest designers, builders and maintainers of commercial and industrial premises. To cover the airport concourses, 83 remote antennas, related hubs and both fibre and CATV cabling were deployed.
That said, a number of vendors are lining up with complementary solutions that bring more intelligence and flexibility to deal with the list of issues that the in-building environment presents and provide multi-band and multi- operator connectivity throughout a site. Axell Wireless used Barcelona this year to launch its idDAS solution. As Axell’s Ingo Flomer, director of product marketing, explains: “There are a range of problems with current small cell concepts and the sector is behind schedule when it comes to fulfilling customer needs, thanks in part to each vendor’s equipment effectively talking in different dialects. With traditional DAS solutions, individual base stations are effectively ‘hard-wired’ to specific areas of a facility, depending on the peak traffic expected. However, mobile traffic in these locations is both bursty and sporadic and that maximum capacity isn’t needed most of the time.”
He adds: “Our idDAS solution allows mobile operators to dynamically allocate capacity around a building that ‘breathes’ in tune with demand – important when many new sites
now share hotels, conference centres, business offices, entertainment venues, residential apartments and shopping areas. As a result, BTS resource can now be pooled and optimised for maximum utilisation with substantial cost savings for CSPs and can be used in both single or multiple operator deployments.”
Flexibility – but who pays?
Also focusing on the weaknesses of traditional DAS platforms is Dr Michael Weber, chief technology officer at wireless specialist Kathrein, who also used MWC to launch their K-BOW micro C-RAN building solution: “Most existing DAS solutions are passive and fail to provide the flexibility to adapt rapidly and cost-effectively to changing requirements. As a complex coax tree with splitters and antennas needs to be deployed in the first instance, it’s necessary to predict capacity demand and identify hotspots two to three years in advance before installation actually begins. Furthermore, if changes need to be made as a result of a company expanding into another floor or, if more broadband capacity is needed, then DAS needs to be manually reconfigured, recalibrated and levelled – a time consuming and costly process that requires specialist skills. In addition, to support MIMO features a DAS tree structure needs to be doubled, which involves huge investment and potential disruption of services.”
Where this fits into the different business cases involved is also expanded on by Kathrein’s Dr Weber. “For CSPs, the business case for serving public buildings isn’t always clear. While there’s an element of prestige, branding and reduced churn, users mainly have flat rates and do not pay more to cover the investment needed for in-building systems. However, by making use of network sharing and multi-operator connectivity, these deployment and operational costs can be shared. For example, our solutions allow a lead operator – or neutral host – to dynamically rent out peak-time capacity and services to other mobile operators. Another possibility is targeting a dedicated mobile CSP’s signal towards sectors in specific areas and, for example, auctioning off additional sectors during a key sporting event to other mobile CSPs. This opens up exciting new and profitable business models for site facility owners, neutral hosts and CSPs.”
The world lacks people who have RF design expertise and this limits the deployment of traditional DAS networks
This need to understand the final operating environment and all the multidisciplinary factors involved is also emphasised by Todd Mersch, general manager of software and solutions at Radisys. “The key for in-building solutions is having the right offering for that specific building and its tenants. For example, deployment of multi-mode small cells (blending 3G, LTE and Wi-Fi) into an enterprise, especially a new office, makes a lot
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