The new language of indoor mobility

(Note: The following has been submitted as a guest post to CommScope Blogs by David Eckell, Emerging Technologies & CIG Market Manager, Graybar. Opinions and comments provided in this guest post, as with all posts to CommScope Blogs, are that of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of CommScope.)

The world of indoor mobility has changed considerably over the past few years. There was a time when the mobile carriers were focused on spending capital for distributed antenna systems (DAS) infrastructure in large venues and commercial buildings. Remember the coverage wars on television?

CLICK TO TWEET: Building owners are left wondering how they can keep pace with the growth of mobile usage. Graybar's David Eckell explains in this blog.

The overall brand sentiment of being connected in public spaces and large buildings was undoubtedly a part of that capital spending. However, now that carriers have shifted their spend away from individual sites into densifying the macro network outside of the building, many building owners are left wondering how they can keep pace with the growth of mobile usage.

The challenges can be overwhelming:

• Do I put in a DAS?
• What is this small cell that I keep hearing about?
• Why can’t I just put in some boosters?

The solutions, their costs and the complexity of the installation cause many building owners to merely ignore the growing connectivity challenges and focus on other things.

At its core, the fundamental decision comes down to how challenging is the system to maintain and how much is it to deploy this solution. Thankfully, DAS technology has evolved to accommodate these realities. Indoor DAS architecture is embracing virtual environments and converged infrastructure much like the IT world did more than a decade ago. Thanks to C-RAN or Cloud Radio Access Networks, many functions previously performed by purpose-built hardware can now be done on a virtual instance on a server. Also, rather than having to pull coaxial cable that is suitable only for a DAS network, new systems operate over fiber and category cable that is already prevalent in the network.

Virtual machines, fiber optics and category cable – now we’re talking the IT manager’s language. The great thing about these changes is now the cost model for these systems is entirely different and manageable. Infrastructure ROI includes not just the life of the product but re-use of infrastructure for standard IT services.

Why not dust off those mobility infrastructure plans and get together with your CommScope and Graybar representatives to see how we can help with your mobility needs?

What in-building wireless coverage do you need?