- Wilson launched a hybrid DAS system that uses repeaters connected to a backbone to support calls from all three major U.S. MNOs
- SNS Telecom noted that SureCall recently announced a similar system, both of which could be seen as a rival to Ericsson’s ‘DAS killer’, which was announced last year
- The Wilson system, however, is intended for SMBs
Trick question: When is a distributed antenna system (DAS) not a distributed antenna system?
When it’s a Wilson Connectivity Hybrid DAS product, which acts as a pseudo-neutral host intended for small and medium businesses (SMBs). The system uses bi-directional cellular repeaters and over-the-air amplifiers to shoot the signal over a building,
“[We’re] really attacking the ‘middleprise’ side of the industry,” said Bruce Lancaster, CEO of Wilson on a call with Fierce last week. “Office spaces, multi-tenant buildings, any place where you need to fix the coverage issue inside a building but you don’t have the funding to fix with a basestation because those cost [between] $1,000 [and] $150,000,” he stated.
He said that this would be less expensive than a traditional DAS unit, noting that a standard DAS deployment costs around $1 a foot. He said that the Wilson system costs 50 to 75 cents to cover the same area. Lancaster said that the hybrid DAS system can cover up to about half-a-million square feet. “Anything beyond that you need dedicated capacity and some basestation resources,” he said.
According to SNS Telecom & IT Director James Bennet, “[The Wilson solution] looks like a combination of a pre-approved part 20 signal repeater system and a fiber optic transport backbone that is typically employed in DAS architectures.
He also noted that “SureCall (a much smaller player) made a similar announcement of its own pre-approved part 20 ‘hybrid-fiber DAS system’ in January this year."
DAS-killer competition heats up
Lancaster said that the repeater-based system enables Wilson to support the three main U.S. operators — AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon — as well as enabling the popular shared enterprise and private networking 3.5 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) band. “That allows a small business enterprise customer to cover all of the commercial cellular on day one and add your own private networking solution on top of that of that too,” he added.
Clearly, this is intended as a cost-effective alternative to DAS for small businesses. Much larger private network players like Ericsson have also started to introduce their own DAS killer systems intended to cover thousands to millions of square feet and certified by the three major MNOs in the U.S.
While the costs for Ericsson's system haven't been publicly revealed, Wilson and others like SureCall will be hoping that their repeater-based systems will provide a multi-operator DAS-like neutral host experience without the cost.