Active DAS Challenges Small Cell Hype–Research Firm

October 8, 2014

J. Sharpe Smith —

October 9, 2014 — At conferences and in trade publications, small cells are pretty much the rage. But DAS OEMs are not giving in just yet.

DAS is up for the fight against small cells as they compete for the $8.5 billion enterprise in-building wireless systems market, according to ABI Research.

“Modern DAS systems challenge small cells by building on their inherent advantages of neutral host, and macrocell parity and adding features such as traffic steering and multiple network convergence (for example Wi-Fi or public safety) on the same in-building backhaul. They also challenge small cells by tackling one of the main drawbacks: cost per square foot of installation and OPEX needed for system cooling and operation,” the report says.

Small cells currently do not provide a neutral host capability and are complex to configure and virtualize since the baseband, unlike DAS, is distributed in each small cell which must coordinate with its neighbors to mitigate interference.

Perhaps the best course of action is to collaborate instead of competing. Hybrid systems are a recent development where the best of DAS and small cells merge, centralizing the baseband function like DAS but using Cloud RAN to distribute signals over dedicated fiber to remote radio heads in the building, according to Nick Marshall, research director, networks.

“ABI Research believes that it is innovations such as these that are laying the groundwork for in-building 5G,” Marshall wrote.

These findings come from a new report entitled “DAS Rises to the Small Cell Challenge” which discusses this market and profiles 17 companies active in this area. The small cell vendors discussed are Airvana, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Ericsson, Huawei, ip.access, NEC, Nokia and SpiderCloud. The DAS vendors profiled are Axell, Commscope, Corning, Dali Wireless, Kathrein, SOLiD, TE Connectivity, and Zinwave.