Verizon Serious About Penetrating Health Care Wireless Space

September 16, 2015

By J. Sharpe Smith —

September 17, 2015 — Verizon is testing the waters, investigating increased involvement in the health care communications space, Tom Gourley, manager technology HQ in-building, Verizon Wireless, told the audience at CommScope’s Healthcare Networks Summit, Sept. 14, in Minneapolis.

“We are pushing forward,” he said. “Verizon is seriously looking at providing service to the health care market. Beyond providing DAS, we are looking at building up our presence, putting more devices on LTE networks.”

As Verizon pushes toward the enterprise user, health care stands out as an obvious choice because it has already seen the value of sharing the cost of the infrastructure, Gourley said. For example, Verizon has worked with Kaiser Permanente, which paid for 100 percent of its DAS deployment infrastructure.

“I think it’s a good trend. If [hospitals] are willing to share the cost, we need to be there,” he said. “We can’t afford to build all of these systems.”

Gourley said he was at the conference to learn more about the health care space and asked the audience questions about providing asset tracking and telemetry, as well as patient amenity communications to the hospitals.

“Can we evolve telemetry to work off of the LTE network? Would there be opposition to running monitoring information over a public network?” he asked. One audience member responded, “That would be great. One less network to worry about.”

InSite Wireless Group has traditionally done high-profile stadia and subway DAS installations. However, it has had many discussions with health care industry officials and is open to involvement.

The traditional neutral host model in which the carrier pays through capex and rent is transitioning to a business model whereby enterprise will be expected to help pay for the DAS, according to Joseph Mullin, DAS chief technology officer, InSite Wireless Group.

“There are still some venues [to be built out] that can command capex and a rental fee from the carrier, but it is not going to continue. There just isn’t enough money and return on investment there,” Mullin said. “We are seeking a lot more participation by the venue to contribute part or all of the cost. The carriers aren’t going to break down your door.”
InSite Wireless Group may take a management and facilitator role with health care DAS, becoming a liaison with the carrier community

“How can we provide a benefit?” he said. “DAS is a living, breathing thing. It is difficult to keep up a DAS, and liaising with carriers is complicated.”

InSite Wireless Group could help meet carriers’ timetables and different technology needs and keep the DAS up and running smoothly, Mullin said.