Telecoms, Carriers Adding More Distributed Antenna Systems, Says IHS

As more and more network operators and telecom service providers look forward to getting more coverage and capacity - from their network architectures, Distributed Antenna Systems or DAS is becoming a preferred strategy to achieve better customer satisfaction.

When asked about the types of DAS nodes they are deploying, 69 percent of the service providers taking part in IHS, DAS study indicated they are using both active and passive DAS.

IHS interviewed 16 of the world’s top 20 independent wireless, incumbent, competitive and cable operators that operate DAS (distributed antenna systems) and found that, on average, respondents expect the DAS nodes in their networks to more than triple between now and 2018.

DAS is used by large service providers and venue owners—airports, stadiums, casinos, malls and the like—to improve network coverage in venues where a macrocell approach does not work.

“As mobile networks migrate from 2G to 3G to LTE, DAS architectures are evolving from passive to active, in which repeaters are replaced with low-power remote radio heads connected through fiber-optic cable to the DAS hub—almost resembling today’s C-RAN macro architectures found in places like South Korea and China,” said Stéphane Téral, research director for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics at IHS.

“When asked about the types of DAS nodes they are deploying, 69 percent of the service providers taking part in our DAS study indicated they are using both active and passive DAS,” Téral said.

88 percent of IHS’s survey respondents use the carrier-owned DAS model, where DAS is 100 percent funded, owned and operated by the service provider.

Coverage and easy upgradability are the chief reasons service providers choose active DAS over passive DAS.

The most common DAS locations are stadiums, tunnels, outdoor metro and retail malls.

Indoor coverage optimization is the top DAS driver among respondents, while deployment cost is the number-one barrier Axell Wireless, CommScope and TE Connectivity (listed in alphabetical order) are perceived as the top DAS manufacturers by survey respondents

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