European mobile infrastructure provider: 'DAS solutions are static'

Found at the website of the DAS Congress, a new article by the German mobile communications infrastructure provider KATHREIN-Werke KG (Kathrein) makes a provocative charge: "DAS solutions are static.'

"DAS solutions have...a significant disadvantage," states Kathrein, via the article, which is unbylined. "They are static and provide no capacity to adapt network capacity to match changing requirements quickly and affordably."

In explanation and justification of this claim, the article contends, "Since a complex coaxial cable structure with splitters and antennas needs to be installed, [a distributed antenna system] requires capacity requirements to be forecast and hotspots to be determined two or three years in advance. The entire system has to be manually reconfigured, calibrated and adjusted if building utilization changes because, for example, a business moves from one floor to another or because higher bandwidth is required for mobile communications in the management board's offices."

"This results in a time-consuming and costly process that also demands a high level of expertise," maintains Kathrein.

"In addition, capacity in a building is not used consistently over the course of time," points out the mobile infrastructure provider. "The demand for data communications is different in a shopping centre than in offices or residential buildings. And a DAS tree structure must be duplicated in order for MIMO (multiple input and multiple output) to be supported for increased data rates on mobiles phones. This means high levels of investment and interruptions to operations."

Read the full article.