Axell Wireless recently issued a PDF white paper that is billed as a guide to DAS optimization. The document advises, "Running separate infrastructure for the DAS and each set of IP devices increases the installation time and cost and can also cause potential interference between the systems. [However], operators can now utilize a single infrastructure over a single fiber-optic cable, supporting both the DAS remote units and the IP backhaul applications."
The analysis continues, "The favorable cost implications [of using a single fiber infrastructure] are self-evident, but it is perhaps more in the innate scalability and liberating flexibility of the DAS that the true long-term benefits reside. Scalability is innate due to the design approach of ‘sectorization’ whereby remotes can be added as capacity and coverage is required. Flexibility is ‘liberating’ because operators are no more constrained by fixed and rigid structures that require major re-investment as wireless communications technology rolls forward which, as the forecasts show, will continue to be the defining characteristic of the mobile world for some years yet to come.
The paper concludes, "[The] key to DAS optimization is the requirement to take real-world considerations into account when designing the infrastructure, establish architecture which permits growth through the inclusion of additional repeaters as required, and ensure high quality through the lowest attainable noise figure, which means deploying the highest quality equipment: three simple steps towards one clearly logical solution."
View/Download the white paper.
See also: Examining neutral-host DAS deployments